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nTitle: Warm Bodies (2013)
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nDirector: Jonathan Levine
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nCast: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich, RobnCorddry
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nReview:
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nThe thing with Warm Bodies is that I initially thought I’dnhate it, I went in with my bag of rotting vegetables, ready to throw them at the screen. To me it looked like it was going to be the Twilight ofnzombie movies and in some ways it is and in some ways it isn’t. What Twilightndid with vampire movies is it softened them up; it turned the monsters into thenheroes. It turned blood sucking creatures into beings who sparkle in thenmoonlight; it made vampires for lack of a better word, ‘cute’. And Warm Bodies does soften up the zombienfilm, it’s main character is a walking corpse, but you wouldn’t notice if younsaw him from afar, except for the pale skin and a couple of scars. And yes mynfriends, let’s not forget this is a film about a zombie who falls in love withna human girl! So yeah, zombie movies are getting the Twilight treatment in anway, just compare Warm Bodies main zombie with the Edward Cullen character from Twilight, and you’ll see they don’t look all that different. Going into the theater I thought, “That’s it for zombie movies!” I don’tnwant my zombies falling in love; I want them mindless and brain hungry! Butnwhatever, this being a zombie movie and me being a zombie movie nut, I decidednto give it the benefit of the doubt. Strange thing is I ended up enjoying WarmnBodies!
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nWarm Bodies tells the story of ‘R’ a zombie who wants to bensomething more than just a zombie. He wants’ to improve himself, betternhimself, and maybe even be human someday. Everything starts one day when R isnon one of his food runs (i.e. looking for humans to eat) when he stumbles uponna group of rebellious humans who are fighting against the zombie hoards. In thenmiddle of the battle, R notices a young human girl named Julie and its love atnfirst site, and well, R starts to feel, his heart starts beating! Should Rnfollow through with his feelings for Julie? Or are their worlds too differentnfor them to fall in love?
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nOne of the things I dug about Warm Bodies is that itnactually delivers a couple of original ideas, number one, the idea that anzombie can go back to being human is one that hadn’t been done before in zombienfilms, and least not in any that I can remember. And number two that a zombiencould fall in love with a human and vice versa. Now in a worn genre like thenzombie movie, well, originality is a welcomed thing! The film presented us withnone or two original concepts, which proves at least the filmmakers where aimingnfor something different.
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nThe idea that we can hear a zombie’s interior monologue is angood one, again, I don’t believe I’d ever seen that done before. The idea isnthat R is conscious of his zombie state, but can do nothing about it. He seesnhimself act as a zombie, but thinks like a normal human being. Of course, tonzombie purists this makes no sense whatsoever because zombies are walkingncorpses. Rationality, logic or thought normally don’t fit into the equation.nBut this isn’t your typical zombie movie and in the world of Warm Bodies zombiesnthat think do exist. The idea is that R hasn’t been dead for long and isn’t asnfar off dead as the ‘Bonies’, which are zombies that are so dead that they literallynlook like walking skeletons. So I guess the filmmakers behind Warm Bodies bentnzombie rules just a bit, as does every movie. All movies create their ownnuniverse and rules, in the universe Warm Bodies, zombies can think just fine.
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nAnother good thing that Warm Bodies has going for it is thatnit’s a socially conscious zombie film, you kind of get the feeling thatnsomething like this is what George Romero would be doing nowadays, but ofncourse, less cute. Recently I saw a Quentin Tarantino interview, in which henstates that every director has his day, makes great films then their timenpasses and they get old and no longer make great films; though I still haven’tnlost my faith in him, I feel this is exactly what happened to George Romero. Tonme old age got to him and he lost it. His last one, Survival of the Dead (2009)nwas a huge disappointment for me. Though not all that bad, it failed to live upnto Romero’s post-apocalyptic glory gory days. Warm Bodies reminded me a bit ofnRomero’s socially conscious zombie films. Warm Bodies portrays modern society asnrobots, automatons who are growing increasingly disconnected from one anothernthanks to I-Pads and cell phones. Inreally dug how Warm Bodies explores class differences by infusing the film withna bit of Romeo and Juliet into the story. Same as Romero and Juliet, R andnJulie come from completely different backgrounds. Julie is one of the humannsurvivors; she lives inside of a walled city that still manages to have somencomforts while R lives inside of an abandoned plane, in a zombie fillednneighborhood. Yet they come together, because together, they will changeneverything. There’s even a balcony scene, so if anyone had any doubts about it,nyeah this is a zombie version of Romeo and Juliet. By the way, the actress who plays Julie -Teresa Palmer- is a true beauty, I really hope we see more of her on the silver screen, and soon!
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nSo that’s it for me ladies and gent’s, I say Warm Bodies isna good zombie film. It might get a little too cutesy at times, especially whennit comes down to zombies thinking, talking, feeling, and falling in love, butnit’s still entertaining and has something to say. A word of warning to zombienfans, there’s not much in the way of blood and guts, though brains are eatennthe gory details are left in shadows or out of camera. I also thought that then‘Bonies’ looked too CGI, they could have pulled those off a little better, Indidn’t buy into those things being real at all. But the idea of the film, thenconcept that a corpse can come back to life through the power of love, is ansplendid one. So is the concept that in a world that is constantly trying tondehumanize us, it’s important that we remember how to feel and emote, toncommunicate and help each other out. I enjoyed how the film emphasizes thenimportance of every day good deeds, simple things that make this world a more pleasantnone to live in. That if we only put more of an effort into actually feelingnemotions and interacting with other human beings, then maybe we can changenthings and make things in this world better, and though these are not the usualnconcepts we’d expect in a zombie movie, well, I still had a blast with WarmnBodies. Recommended!
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nRating: 4 out of 5
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