In a world overrun and overcome by flesh-munching zombies, where is the laughter? Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick conceive the comedy along with director Ruben Fleischer in his first feature, and a talented ensemble of actors deliver the goods with perfect timing in Zombieland.

If a more entertaining movie has been released in 2009, I've not seen it. (Well, there's Star Trek for a more cerebral bent, but certainly no better comedy than Ruben Fleicher's film) Zombies can be a ton of fun as long as they don't chomp too many human characters and remain primarily bloody fodder for practical jokes and target practice—Romero's obsessed shopping center hoards in Dawn of the Dead and the deliberately comic Shaun of the Dead. And never before have they served better in comic relief, supporting Jesse Eisenberg (taking the name Columbus after his home town) and his new fully human companions across a Mad Max-like U.S. landscape in classic travel movie structure.

If you've seen Jesse Eisenburg before (and not confused him with the "other" young relatively non-descript all around good guy Michael Cera) in Roger Dodger, The Squid and the Whale or Adventureland, you already realize that he's no athletic super hero or supreme bad ass, but he's an extremely talented young actor who conveys sincere down to earth goodness. Using his natural geekiness, Columbus has survived the zombie Holocaust by following his set of rules—like using cardio training to outrun the zombies, double head taps to ensure their demise, and being justifiably paranoid about public restrooms. The various rules become a running joke throughout the film, popping up as an onscreen graphic when our hero employs them.

As Columbus journeys to check on his parents, he hooks up with Tallahasee (Woody Harrelson)—a polar opposite personality loaded with an impressive arsenal and is obsessed with wreaking havoc on zombies and seeking fresh Twinkies. Tallahassee frequently eschews guns to deliver gleeful machismo vengeance with tire irons, hedge clippers, steel banjos, or whatever else is lying around. The short lived buddy movie veers into more familiar road movie territory when they encounter a pair of women con artists—young vixen Wichita (Emma Stone) and her 12 year old sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin).

Like Little Miss Sunshine (which first gave notice to Breslin), the film takes an essentially dysfunctional group of people that melds into a family over the course of events. Of course, who wouldn't rather hang out with warm blooded human beings than going out on your own to face an inexhaustible number of bloody flesh eaters in the United States of Zombieland?