Zombie Movies
Warm Bodies-2013
Sniffing out the scent of human flesh, they grunt, snarl, and hunt. They show no mercy and pound down windows and doors, and become frustrated when faced with a large concrete wall. Then they get shot in the head and die. Zombies; the uncivilized monsters we come to love.
Never do viewers get to see the inner thoughts and feelings (if they even have any) of a zombie’s rotting mind. “Warm Bodies" flips that script. Breathing new life into this otherwise lifeless popular horror genre; Jonathan Levine, director and screen play writer, shows, through dialog and audience connection, that zombies have a heart, even if they are cold at first.
The main character’s internal speech of his zombie life, wins the viewer over from the start. “Why can’t I connect with people?” R (Nicholas Hoult) wonders. R is unsure of what his name was before his life as a slumping zombie except that it began with an R. Actually R doesn’t remember much of what he did, pre-apocalypse. This loss in identity makes the viewer’s feel for R. A viewer will find themselves rooting for R.
Hoult manages to get laughs and draws us into his character. Although most of Hoult’s character includes clever voiceovers he essentially plays a silent-film character, much like Charlie Chaplin. Showing his charisma is an un-charismatic character is a tough job, but Hoult treats it like a cake walk.
While on a hunt for food R and a group of zombies come across some human survivals. Amongst the humans, Julie (Teresa Palmer), Julie’s boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco), and best friend Nora (Analeigh Tipton) are attacked by the hungry zombies. R and Julie have a strange meeting; moments after they lock eyes for the first time, he’s eating her boyfriend’s brains.
Now you can presumably say that for Julie it wasn’t love at first sight. As R smears blood on her to mask her human smell; Palmer shows the perfect balance of emotion between frightened and freaked out.
When gorging on Perry’s brains, R knows what it might be like to be Julie’s boyfriend. Since for R it was certainly love at first sight he can’t help but remind himself to not scare away the girl of his dreams. “Don’t be creepy.”
Following the pursuit of Twilight, Levine attempts to make R and Julie the next big thing. This is a charming and typical adolescent romantic comedy with a twist, “Warm Bodies” gives new perceptive to the term young love.
Falling in love with Julie gives R a strange humanizing effect, curing him. But of course with any good love story there will be complications between the two love birds. As the daughter of the general (John Malkovich) of a militia trying to execute the zombies, Julie’s zombie boyfriend would pose a problem.
Levine does a remarkable job at making this teen romance movie just that, a teen movie. Keeping it fairly clean with hand holding and some kissing this movie is just what it’s rated Pg-13. However parents should be sure to keep an eye out for some foul language and a scene where Julie strips to her undergarments in order to dry her clothes.
Based off of the novel written by Isaac Marion by the same title, Levine balances love and gore as well as it could be. Aside from Hoult’s alluring internal speech, the stars’ performance brings this movie to life. Palmer is brave, funny and makes flirting with a zombie seem realistic.
Even more animalistic than the zombies, skeletal creatures called Boneys appear throughout the movie. When zombies have lost all hope they rip their skin off leaving a quite freakishly looking skeleton.
Of course every movie has its flaws and “Warm Bodies” isn’t an exception to that. The Boneys are average special effects that run kind of like stiff robots. Music can either enhance a movie or not and for this movie, the music was not an enhancer. Some of the musical choices in “Warm Bodies” are broad and predictable; for instance at one point in the movie a cheesy love song comes on and minutes later another cheesy love song.
Aside from these slight disadvantages; “Warm Bodies” is great entertainment. With a run time of 98 minutes this movie is filled with laughs, love, and acceptance. Although the humor can be cheesy and predicable you find yourself rooting for R and Julie.
Mary Pols from Time Entertainment said “Warm Bodies is the first movie worth paying to see in theaters this year.” Agreeing, Richard Roeper from the Chicago Sun-Times also said “I kinda love this movie." And who wouldn’t love this movie?
Most zombie movies have a brain, but usually that brain is seen being eaten. In this case the brain is put to use. The zombies are learning to be human again. Props to “Warm Bodies” for bringing new light to the post-apocalyptic zombie craze.