Zombieland

So Dish Network is celebrating the Starz 30th Anniversary by providing free access to Starz programming for a full year. Whoa! This means we finally get to watch movies we never would have seen otherwise. Score!

So today I finally got around to watching "Zombieland."

I had heard a lot of good things about it, so I decided to finally give it a spin, now that I had nothing to lose. After all, I love zombies and post apocalyptic themes. So I strapped myself in, ready for the ride.

An hour and a half of my life later, I'll have to say that I thought the movie was just alright. It was really funny, but I was expecting a little more.

First of all, most zombie movies I've seen do a great job of serving up some sort of metaphorical commentary about our society. If Zombieland did that, I probably just wasn't paying close enough attention because I didn't quite see it. More than anything, it made clever commentaries about the entire genre of zombie movies.

There was something, however, that I thought was really interesting; the main characters didn't really have names. They only identified themselves by their city of origin. This was a way of protecting themselves from becoming too "attached" to each other so as not to cloud their judgment and threaten their chances of survival.

Identifying themselves by using city names reminded me of something really important: the scriptures and the fact that we are like cities.

Jesus said, "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid" (Matthew 5:14).

In Book of Mormon times, settlers would often name their cities after the explorer who discovered the area they settled in (Alma 8:7). The Book of Mormon then dedicates several of its chapters (Alma 45-62) towards an in-depth look at how these cities were fortified, protected, destroyed, captured, and recaptured. There is even a comparison between the difficulty of recapturing fallen cities (Alma 59:9) and the difficulty of recapturing those who have turned from God after having enjoyed some of His greatest blessings (Alma 24:30). This principle is also found in the New Testament (Luke 11:24-26).

Jesus even addressed cities as if they were specific people, saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" (Matthew 23:37).

The Old Testament has a few gems too. Like "He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls" (Proverbs 25:28).

So on second thought, maybe Zombieland did make me think. Maybe it was a better movie than I originally thought it was. Hmmmm....