Review: 'Zombieland: Double Tap' revives the conceit, but with none of the goofy magic

Running from zombies for 10 years must be exhausting.

Maybe that’s why “Zombieland: Double Tap” (★★½ out of five; rated R; in theaters nationwide Friday) seems so tired. Director Ruben Fleischer and the heart of the cast of 2009’s “Zombieland” return, but the goofy magic of the original is in short supply. There are some funny bits and a welcome shot of new blood, but there’s not a lot of overwhelming evidence for this movie’s need to exist.

Columbus (Jessie Eisenberg) begins the movie by welcoming everyone back. He explains what’s been going on for the last 10 years. He’s in a relationship with Wichita (Emma Stone), while Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) acts as kind of a surrogate father to Wichita’s sister, Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), although she’s not as enthusiastic about that as he is.

They classify zombies in three different ways now, depending on the abilities of that particular walking dead. Fair enough – the slow-moving dumb ones are called “Homers,” after Homer Simpson – but it never really amounts to much in terms of the story, with the exception of a more-evolved type of zombie that’s harder to kill.

The four take up residence in the White House, where Donald Trump jokes go untold. (There is one about William Howard Taft, however, if you're waiting for that.)

All in all, it’s a good life, Columbus tells us. But an ill-advised question sets Wichita and Little Rock on a different path for a time, where they meet Berkeley (Avan Jogia), a hippie pacifist – not exactly what you want in a world full of zombies, but Little Rock is desperate to meet someone her own age, so she’s willing to overlook it.

Columbus and Tallahassee, meanwhile, meet Madison (Zoey Deutch), an airhead who is without question the most-welcome addition to the cast and the best thing about the movie. She brings the same zany energy that was so pervasive in the first film – the go-for-broke willingness to do anything for a laugh.

The group, in varying combinations, will travel to Graceland and then to a commune called Babylon. In Memphis they meet Nevada (Rosario Dawson), a tough survivor and someone for whom Tallahassee can at least temporarily drop his tough-guy act.

There’s a funny, ambitious bit in Memphis that’s best left unspoiled, but it makes you long for more of this kind of inventiveness. And there’s a post-credits cameo that seems like an almost desperate attempt to reclaim one of the best bits in the original film. Without saying too much, an earlier reference is genuinely funny. The post-credits scene is too much.

This is a really great cast, but it’s just impossible to recapture the antic feel of the first film in a sequel. In the original, the zombies were new, and part of the fun was the group of survivors wrapping their heads around the fact that the dead were rising and, while they’re at it, eating people. Once they did that, they had to adapt and learn how to survive.

Now they know how, and they seem almost bored with it. They’ve lived this long by becoming really good at killing zombies – so good that, with a few exceptions, there’s never really any danger. That edge, that tension, was a big part of what made “Zombieland” so funny. “Zombieland: Double Tap” could have used a lot more of it.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Zombieland 2' review: Emma Stone & crew are back, but the magic isn't