Beyond that inconvenience, and a half-baked idea of “evolving” zombies, the movie feels like it’s taking place about six months after Zombieland. It takes place 10 years after the original, which feels like a grudging necessity to account for Wichita’s sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) aging from childhood to adulthood. Zombieland: Double Tap downgrades the formula to sometimes funny, and not especially affecting.

But for much of its running time, the movie is uncomfortably satisfied with recreating the dynamics of the funny, sometimes affecting, first film. The script (by Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick) occasionally points out the film’s potential mustiness: Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) narrates a direct thank-you to the audience upfront, acknowledging that viewers have “many choices in zombie entertainment.” Later, Wichita (Emma Stone) chides Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) for reviving his old catchphrase (“Nut up or shut up,” for those with hazy memories of the original film). Given the endless (and mostly basic) references to both pop culture and the original Zombieland, it wouldn’t be out of character for Zombieland: Double Tap to lay out this sequel-as-zombie parallel itself. It’s more like an 1980s-style cheapie retread, disguised as a more respectable legacy sequel. As a decade-later follow-up to 2009’s irreverent horror-comedy Zombieland, it isn’t an entry in an active franchise. Zombieland: Double Tap occupies a similar space in the world of sequels. Putting aside the monstrous thirst for flesh, a zombie is essentially halfway between a living human and a rotting corpse, animated but staggering around without much grace, a desiccation disguised as a person.

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