Zombies are known for being slow and looking extremely pale. They are carnivores who do not think twice about eating your brain. Warm Bodies is aware of all of these things and pokes fun at it and is not afraid to laugh at itself. The movie offers a refreshing twist on not only the classic love story, but how we view zombies and how they view themselves. I mean when have we seen a movie about the dead actually turning back in to the living instead of the other way around?
Director Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness) flips the zombie-horror genre on its head. Warm Bodies is a combination of many genres and could be filed under Horror, Comedy, Romantic Comedy or all three. Take your pick. And while the movie starts off with no limitations, the longer it goes the more it begins to slowly lose its originality and turn generic. However, it ends without wearing out its welcome and holds its grip on being energetic and fun to watch.
Warm Bodies is a simple tale about a boy who falls in love with a girl with one exception: one of them is dead. The boy (Nicholas Hoult) is a zombie who goes by R because he can’t remember anything about his life including his own name. R is not your usual numb, mindless zombie. He has sympathy and compassion, and doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but at the same time, he has accepted the life he has even if he does not enjoy it.
His life path begins to change on the day him and his buddies decide to leave their airport hangout and go look for “food”. He encounters Julie (Teresa Palmer) along with some of her other survivor pals. Not all of them live, but R does manages to rescue her from the gruesome attack. Of course, Julie is frightened as hell, but soon she realizes what we as the audience already know: R is not your stereotypical zombie.
As they begin to form a unique relationship to say the least, the war between the life and the lifeless rages on and the leader of it just happens to be Julie’s father, General Grigio (John Malkovich). Along with the constant struggle to survive, something extraordinary occurs that R, Julie or anyone else could have ever imagined. Thanks to Julie and the human connection R is able to make with her, he becomes increasingly more human and causes his heart to start beating once again. This is just the beginning and everything R knew is about to change for him and the rest of the zombies who feel like they are just fading away. Even zombies get second chances.
This marks the first movie Hoult has had to carry on his own. He made a good first impression as a youngster in About A Boy, but grew up real quick in A Single Man. However, most people recognize him as being Beast in X-Men: First Class. His chemistry with Palmer comes across well. Now could two other young talents have pulled it off better? Maybe. But they work well together and it’s left up to Hoult to not only be convincing as a self-aware zombie, but to be one who is capable of falling in love. He is successful for the most part and we can’t ignore Palmer having a big part in all of that.
Levine has tackled tougher subjects, but Warm Bodies is the most mainstream movie he has taken on. If you haven’t seen 50/50, you need to. It is definitely Levine’s best so far. Anyways, back to Warm Bodies. It is a light, entertaining movie that does not take itself too seriously. The way Levine introduces us to R and the environment he lives in prepares us for what is to come. Credit must be given to him for attempting to breathe new life into such a predictable, dried-up genre.
I guess that is why the movie is a little disappointing by the end because it almost falls into the trap that it’s been trying to avoid the entire time. The same time R is transforming into a human being, Warm Bodies is undergoing its own mutation. It is becoming something we have seen before. The movie slowly takes steps back to a place of familiar territory. Luckily, Warm Bodies prevents itself from completely returning to a state of normalcy and wraps up just in the nick of time before it turns dead and cold.
“Nature Boy” Brandon Vick is a member of The Music City Film Critics’ Association, the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and the star of Brandon’s Box Office In Your Mouth. Follow him on Twitter @SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
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