Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies - 98 min – PG13

I am a zombie fan so this ZomRomCom (Zombie Romantic Comedy) already has my attention. It’s a really a well put together film. They have a good mix of zombie lore with all of the angst of a young romance. Being a young woman in a zombie apocalypse is hard, especially when the man who is looking for your affections is dead, and he who ate your boyfriend. The story shambles along in a very formulaic way but it has some good funny parts to keep it lighter than your normal zombie face-eating movie. I think it is the lightest apocalypse movie I have ever seen. I was originally thinking yellow light but as I think about it I am leaning more toward green.

R (Nicholas Hoult) is a zombie who feels empty and trapped by his existence. He is looking for something more out of life. He and his friend M (Rob Corddry) head into town to scare up something to eat. They stumble upon Julie, Nora and Perry (Teresa Palmer, Analeigh Tipton and Dave Franco), a group of human scavengers. R is bitten by cupid and falls for Julie, but not before eating her boyfriend Perry. Hey, at least R feels bad about it. R has an idea that he can save Julie so he covers for her and gets her to shamble back to his airplane lair for safety. He keeps her safe for a few days then they make their way back to the human settlement. The change in R seems to be catchy and other zombies are having a change of heart. There is another more deadly brand of zombie that the zombies call “boneys” that are not affected by the love bug. Apparently they are too far gone to be saved. Julie pleads with her father, Grigio (John Malkovich), that the zombies are changing but he is very set in his ways.

This is the first zombie movie that brings us the zombie’s point of view. I wonder if this is more of a commentary of the increase in non-interactive media that people are engaging in. There is a quick scene at the beginning where R laments the loss of being human and interacting with other people and everyone in the scene is looking at an electronic device. I guess you could continue the thought here saying that love will awaken the human in all of us electronic addicted non-human engaging modern zombies. We can break down the walls like in the movies through mutual understanding and tolerance for different people. Or it could just be a cute romantic comedy with a different twist on the whole zombie craze.

Jonathan Levine brought together a great cast and did a good job of delivering this heavy setting in a light-hearted way. His body of work is on the lean side but he has some really good stuff under his belt. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with next. Nicholas Hoult’s performance in this really makes the movie. It’s seeing his transformation from rotten to human that sells the story.

This movie was good but is nowhere near the awesomeness that Shawn of the dead was. That is still the gold standard of ZomRomCom.

I did notice that in the trailer they had mixed elements from the film but not in the right order. I did a few articles (Coming soon… Part One, Coming Soon… Part two) on trailers misrepresenting films. I don’t think I talked about movies that use elements that are in the movie in different scenes. I might have to look at this again. Another trailer takes all of the best parts and uses them. I hate it when they do that.

Warning Spoilers!!!!!! Only people with a pulse beyond this point!!!!!!!

Ok I am not sure I completely buy the whole “love saves the day and makes zombies into humans again” idea, but I have to rein myself in. I am talking about what can and can’t affect a mythical creature called a zombie, so I am not going to look at that too closely.

The using the brains to steal memories from the living was a bit gross and somewhat creepy that he was living vicariously through the memories from her boyfriend to get more information about her. But as she may be suffering from Stockholm syndrome and a mild case of necrophilia I guess it all works out.

Analeigh Tipton is showing more of a stronger presence on screen. I really liked how she was holding the gun to Grigio’s head and told him “Oh I would so shoot you” Strong, tough, funny role for her.


What movie genre should be zombified next?