In the 10 years since we last saw Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg),porn videos of tiny teens girls having sex Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) in Zombieland, their world's changed quite a bit.

As Zombieland: Double Tapbegins, they've claimed the White House as their new homestead, and they've gotten so good at zombie-killing that the undead are less an existential threat than an annoying fact of life. The zombies themselves have changed, too, evolving into a handful of distinct subspecies: "Homers," as in Simpson, are the dumb ones; "Hawkings," as in Stephen, are the smart ones; "Ninjas" are the quiet ones sneaking up on unsuspecting victims.

However, still more has happened in our world during that time. Zombie-based entertainment has exploded, comedy trends have come and gone, certain tropes have been reconsidered, and this cast has collectively been nominated for six more Oscars. Landing in 2019, Double Taplooks pretty undead itself, an empty shell going through the motions but extinguished of all life.

In part, it's that the timing is off. The idea of a zombie comedy simply felt fresher in 2009, before Warm Bodiesand Pride and Prejudice and Zombiesand The Dead Don't Dieand iZombieand Santa Clarita Dietand so on and so forth. This universe looked more promising then, too, full of rules we didn't understand yet and truths we hadn't figured out. Part of the fun of the first film was exploring this landscape along with the gang, sussing out what was and wasn't left in all this rubble.

But Double Tap's bigger crime is that it's lost the heart that made Zombielandmore than a clever genre exercise. At its core, the first film was about lonely souls coming together in a tough world, becoming better people together than they ever were apart. Double Tapfeels more like a story of people coming together because it's foolishness notto resurrect familiar IP in this franchise-obsessed age, especially when the actors, director (Venom's Ruben Fleischer), and screenwriters (Deadpool's Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, this time with Dave Callahan) are all way more marketable than they were a decade ago.

Perhaps I'm being ungenerous. It's possible that there was at one point a burning creative drive fueling this enterprise — a need to fill out this world, or expand on its themes, or just spend time with these likable characters again. But 10 years (and one failed Amazon pilot) later, it appears as if so much energy was spent wrangling the talent and chasing down checks and getting the requisite yeses that nothing was left over for figuring out what this cast and crew should actually do once they were reunited.

So we're left with a sequel that lookssuperficially correct — there's Wichita with her leather jackets, and Tallahassee with his cowboy hats, and Columbus with those big blocky captions spelling out his rules — but feels totally empty. The characters we used to enjoy have become paper doll versions of themselves, pushed around by an aimless plot for 99 minutes until it's time to go home.

The new characters introduced in Double Tapdon't add much, either. Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch are brought in as a pair of doppelgängers for Tallahassee and Columbus; it's a funny gag that nevertheless seems like way more trouble than it's worth. Avan Jogia's Berkeley is our entry into Babylon, a hippie commune that has somehow survived without taking up arms against the monsters, and if you're asking questions like "how?" and "why?" and "where do they get their food?" you've already put more thought into it than the writers seem to have.

The lone bright spot in Double Tapis also its most confounding creation. Madison fits a "dumb blonde" stereotype that would have seemed outdated 20 years ago, let alone 10, let alone now. Yet Zoey Deutch (Everybody Wants Some!!, Set It Up) plays her with such verve that the entire movie seems to perk up a bit whenever she's onscreen. I didn't want more Madison, but I wanted very much for Deutch to be in more and better comedies.

Double Tap, though, only wants to make fun of Madison. She's dressed in Juicy Couture sweats and Ugg boots like she's time-traveled from 2003, but talks up SoulCycle and accidentally invents Uber like she's teleported over from 2014. The point is just that she's an annoying girly-girl who can't hang, in contrast to tough chicks like Wichita.

But these lazy anachronisms also contribute to the film's unstuck-in-time quality. There is nothing about Double Tapthat feels particularly modern, which is fine; the issue is that there is also nothing about Double Tapthat feels like it needs to exist right now. It's not reflecting anything about the world we live in. It's not appealing to our nostalgia. It doesn't even work as timeless escapism, because it's not entertaining enough for that.

Instead, it shuffles along like a movie that doesn't remember where it came from, and has no idea where it's going. It knows only that it's got an insatiable hunger for box office dollars. If, in the parlance of this universe, the original was a Ninja, sneaking up on an unsuspecting public, this one's a Homer: good for mild amusement but not much more. Best to step out of its way as it ambles past, and then get on with your own life.