With stars such as Bill Murray, Adam Driver and Steve Buscemi to name a few, this zombie comedy seemed to was a match made in a golden comedy heaven. Sadly The Dead Don’t Die misses the mark on a lot of aspects.
The Dead Don’t Die is a standard zombie movie. It’s based in a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere USA™ with an even sleepier police force. Suddenly people turn into zombies because of Polar fracking (yes that is a tired environmental joke that’s not really funny). Now it’s up to tired cop, nihilistic cop and scared cop to take up the fight against the zombies in this waaaaacky adventure.
Bill Murray carries the role of the tired nothing really surprises me cop role rather well. But that is probably because he himself is rather tired. At times it was hard to differentiate the acting from genuine “I am tired of this acting business”. Murray still has a witty sense of humor throughout and that is one of the things that made this movie bearable.
Compared to the masterfully made One Cut Of The Dead I reviewed earlier this year you can really see where this movie falls short. The fourth wall breaking humor seems forced, the jokes are dad puns at best and even the star filled cast doesn’t seem to believe in the movie. This is a true dad joke zombie movie if I’ve ever seen one. I am still on the fence if that is a good thing or not.
The one thing that saved the movie for me was the excellent performance of Tilda Swinton playing the aptly titled character Zelda Winston, a Scottish undertaker with an affinity for the ninja art. All of her scenes brought a huge smile to my face and it made the whole ordeal worth it.
Would I recommend this movie? No not really. Unless you are a dad who likes puns, big stars and repetitious jokes this movie is really not for anyone. The Dead Don’t Die had all the potential in the world but fell short. Why I really don’t know.
