Warm Bodies Movie Review
Mitch Butler, Junior
Released on Friday February 1st, “Warm Bodies,” entered theaters and promised to be a clever new spin on the prototypical American romantic comedy because it throws zombies into the mix. Better yet, it tries so desperately to be a modern rendition of Romeo and Juliet. Not to my surprise, the film doesn’t come close to living up to such a promise. The movie is built upon the incessantly recycled formula that plagues nearly all American romance films. Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Girl doesn’t like boy. Boy works hard to make girl like him. Boy gets girl. In the end, they’re sitting together, holding hands, and kissing in the sunset. It’s all too nauseating.
I’ll admit, for the first twelve minutes, I thought director Jonathan Levine was really on to something. The film opens with undead male protagonist R musing about life as a zombie. A philosophical zombie? Interesting enough. Probably, the highpoint of the movie is a conversation consisting of a series of grunts and head movements between R and his “best friend” M. A quasi-human interaction between zombies.
However, the film ostensibly starts to circle the drain when human girl Julie crosses paths with R. Except for her skill with a shotgun, she’s a typical teenage girl who overtly defies her father, de facto leader of the remaining human civilization. R and Julie meet in the aftermath of a brawl, which left only both of them alive. Instantly, R starts to pine over her, and he coerces her into leaving with him. Fearing for her life, Julie follows R back to the zombie airport headquarters. R puts her up in a remote 747 where he hopes no one will find her.
Hours fly by and Julie falls asleep in coach, so R goes up to the cockpit to do some musing. Since, as the audience is expected to know, zombies can’t sleep, R’s metaphysical side manifests itself again. He sits in silent thought while munching on some leftover grey matter. When a zombie eats brains, interestingly enough, he can see the brain’s thoughts and memories in his own mind. Turns out the brains belong to Julie’s (former) boyfriend Perry. Oops. A twist so unriveting that it propelled me further back into my seat.
Later that night, R feels unfamiliar warmth in his heart, which begins to beat. It’d been kick started. By Julie. Soon after, all the zombies, except for the “bonies” which are somehow more undead, feel their hearts beating. Not only that, they begin to turn back into humans. It was at this point that I wished R had eaten my brains instead of Perry’s.
Suddenly, the film’s plot undergoes a cloying volte-face. The “bonies,” which, for the first half of the film sat idly in the shadows, emerge as the new antagonistic force. The zombies face an uphill battle to avoid the “bonies,” which will eat anything with a beating heart, and to convince the humans that they’re “the good guys.”
Eventually, Julie starts to fall for R although she struggles to come to terms with the fact that he ate her boyfriend’s brains. A turn of events that’s unsurprising, yet still disdainfully disappointing.
At one point, R finds himself calling to Julie from below the balcony that overlooks her backyard. Of course, this scene cried violently out “SHAKESPEARE,” as if the names “Julie” and “R” weren’t on the nose enough. I found myself looking at my watch regularly from that point on, desperate to exit the theater.
The film ends with a glaring bow and, literally, a bang. Julie’s father shoots R, still unconvinced of his humanity, only to find that he bleeds. Miraculously, he’s convinced that all the zombies are “okay,” and he has his troops join with the zombies to destroy the “bonies.” In the closing scene, Julie and R sit together on the edge of a rusty bridge, watching the demolition of the wall dividing the humans and zombies. The literal and figurative breaking of barriers. Simply painful to watch.