After ten years in development, Zombieland: Doubletap is the unexpected sequel that almost everyone wanted. Picking up a few years after its predecessor, Zombieland: Doubletap follows the original cast after they have taken residence in The White House. After months of living in relative safety, the cast does decide to go their separate ways due to a feeling of stagnation. With plenty of open road and hordes of the undead everywhere, there is a lot of potential packed in this series, and it mostly lives up to that.

Following the same path as its predecessor, Zombieland 2 never takes itself too seriously. With media like Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us and The Walking Dead setting the recent cultural standard of hyperviolent darkness in zombie stories, it feels nice to step into something less serious. You don’t have to worry about a group of depressed survivors trying to reestablish a broken world. You should expect a lot of Woody Harrelson slaying zombies in increasingly brutal ways. Even though the story is still full of gory, often hilarious, zombie kills, this movie still maintains a similar feel-good tone as the original.

After its ten years in development hell, I thought the chances of a sequel to the original Zombieland were pretty well dead. As it turns out, I was almost right. While this film is still a hilarious bloodbath with some solid acting, it does overly rely on references to the film’s first entry. While most of these references are still funny, they do keep the movie from breaking any new ground. The movie does bring in some fresh elements in the form of new survivors. I personally found the horror stereotypes of Madison and Berkeley to be endearing and hilarious additions to the already quirky cast.

All in all, I do recommend this movie. Just don’t go in expecting anything as fresh and exciting as its predecessor. I should warn you to stay for the movie’s post-credits scene. It puts the Marvel Cinematic Universe to shame.