Warm Bodies

Plot: After a zombie apocalypse, the humans have walled themselves into a single walled city, and the zombies and their more demented cousins, the skeletons, rule the world outside. Julie (Teresa Palmer) and her boyfriend Perry leave the walled city to scavenge for supplies, but get surprised by R (Nicholas Hoult), M (Rob Corddry) and other zombies. R eats Perry's brain and acquires his memories including his love for Julie. R is immediately smitten by Julie, and can't kill her. Instead he disguises her and takes her into the zombie city. Soon she begins to trust R, and hate the skeletons who are meaner and more aggressive than the ordinary zombies. She meets M and their zombie friends, who also don't eat her, and like having her around. The skeletons force them to run, and in time R arrives at the human city where he is not wanted.  In the end, there is a battle between humans, skeletons, and zombies, and the movie proceeds to its ending/s. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Warm Bodies is Romeo and Juliet with R, the zombie, as Romeo, and Julie as Juliet.  M is Mercutio, and Nora is Juliet's Nurse. Plus there is a scene with Julie on the balcony and R calling up to her, as in the play. 

Since R is a zombie and can't emote very well, most of the movie is carried by Palmer's Julie; we never get much emotion from Nicholas Hoult's R -- although he gives a voice over narration to tell everyone what he is thinking.  Aside from some nice facial acting by Teresa Palmer, the middle of the movie is slow. Zombies are dull monsters.

The skeletons are faster moving and clearly animated, and often they were scary. The photography is serviceable, and the sound effects were good, which made the average sets seem better.  The soundtrack by Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders was great; there were multiple good songs.

There is a symbolic meaning, which is the love can redeem the world -- bring dead people back to life. That was a nice plus. 

Cast: Teresa Palmer, Nicholas Hoult

Directed by: Jonathan Levine based on the novel by Isaac Marion

Rating: 2.0 stars: possibly 2. 5 stars if you like the Shakespeare angle a lot. Some good parts, but only occasionally fun. Although advertised as a comedy, it is not funny -- see the SPOILER section below.

 

SPOILER: Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, and this movie is advertised as a comedy, which means a happy ending. There is a symbolic death scene that is supposed to serve as the tragic death of the play, and a rebirth: I like the idea that when zombies 'die' they come back to life. If Julie had stabbed herself after R died as in Shakespeare's original, it would have felt wrong because the evil skeletons would have won.  By introducing a common enemy of skeletons, the writers create the option for a happy ending. 

More: As everyone knows, there is no such thing as zombies, and you can't ask a movie like this to make sense. If you need sensibleness, you should stay home and read -- I was going to say watch CNET on TV, but that isn't very sensible either -- maybe you should read geometry.

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