Dead man stalking: "Zombieland"

Yes, another zombie movie. That makes, oh, 147 this decade? And it's not even the first ha-ha one, with "Shaun of the Dead" leaving some big footsteps to follow. That said, this little comedy is thoroughly watchable, thanks to the two leads convincingly going through the tried-and-true Odd Couple motions.

After an opening montage, accompanied by Van Halen's "Everybody Wants Some," that shows how most of the planet got sick and/or killed by zombies, we follow young college student Jesse Eisenberg as he tries to make his way from Texas to Columbus, Ohio. He tells us the rules of survival, which are amusing. He also soon meets up with a redneck zombie killer (Woody Harrelson) who calls himself Tallahassee, since that's where he is headed. The geeky kid? He's now "Columbus."

Some stomping of the undead ensues, but the real story here is how these guys get along, and it's a pretty good pairing. Eisenberg doesn't have much range, but he does the sensitive dorky thing all right. The flashback of his life before the zombies -- and what about it made him able to avoid being infected -- is pretty good. Meanwhile, Harrelson plays the hick role to the hilt, a caricature of a man who doesn't care about anything anymore but killin' zombies.

This dynamic duo run across a couple of teenage sisters -- "Wichita" (Emma Stone) and "Little Rock" (Abigail Breslin) -- who aren't remotely helpless. Eventually, they fall in together and head west to an amusement park that supposedly is zombie-free. Um, OK. Once in El Lay, they hunker down for a while in a celebrity's house -- a sequence that may be the best part of the movie. I won't ruin it by divulging the celebrity, but this person is as game as ever. Good stuff.

There's not a lot of story here, true. But it's great fun, and in a less British way than (the still superior) "Shaun of the Dead." I mean, if the serious tales of the undead get you down, you could do worse than Woody plugging zombies while on a quest for Twinkies. Talk about a man possessed. Dude, it's not like they're those red coconut-covered Zingers. Oh, mama ...