Review of Warm Bodies

I’ve heard a lot of things said about Warm Bodies. I’ve heard that it’s innovative and interesting, and I’ve also heard that it's the downfall of the zombie genre. Depending on how much of a zombie purist you are, either of these could be true, but I’m leaning more towards the first. While at its long-dead, zombified heart it is one in a rash of many very samey (and boringly so, I might add) paranormal romances, there’s something to it that’s a little bit more… Likeable. One of the many things I’d heard this film described as (even way back before it was released) was the ‘zombie Twilight’. My strong feelings about the Twilight Saga aside, Warm Bodies is more than that. Much more than that.

The romance side of Warm Bodies wasn’t as bad as I expected, and it was in fact very funny and incredibly self-aware, especially when R (Nicholas Hoult) chides himself for blankly staring at Jules in his zombie, half-dead way, deeming it creepy. The film is packed with gems like this, where the thoroughly zombified R keeps an ongoing narrative throughout, often which give a humorous insight into the world of R, his ‘home’, and best friend (if zombies can have best friends, that is) M. Even the comparisons to Romeo and Juliet aren't massively pronounced, and only if you're really looking for the references and comparisons will you find them. 

Julie (Teresa Palmer) and R (Nicholas Hoult).

Conversely, Jules, the Juliet to R’s Romeo , is pretty darn badass. As the only daughter of the zombie-widowed Grigio (John Malkovich), who leads the concrete-wall surrounded survival settlement the humans have been pushed to,  Jules proves that she’s capable of sticking up for herself and surviving… At least until R and his merry band of flesh-eating compatriots turn up. In a strange turn of events, R ends up saving Julie, and taking her back to his home, masked in the scent of zombie blood. It’s during this time that the two become close, and Jules awakens something in R… Something that doesn’t make him want to eat her brains, anyway.

The bonies. Creepy, right?

In terms of the actual zombies in the film, they’re surprisingly creative. It’s a well-known fact that the zombie genre has been slowly gaining popularity, ever since its first inception back in 1968 with George A. Romero’s iconic Night of the Living Dead, and zombies have never seen more popularity ‘till now. The zombies themselves have also gone through a state of evolution, changing from the slow, shambling ones we see in Night of the Living Dead, through to Bub the ‘intelligent’ zombie in Day of the Dead, and even the running rage-infected zombies in 28 Days Later and they evolve even further in Warm Bodies.  You get the ‘corpses’ that R, M and the rest of their zombie motley crew are, and then you get the ‘bonies’ that are somewhere near the bastardised offspring of a Olympic track star and a demon from Silent Hill. Skeletal, speedy and straight up scary, bonies are corpses that have given up; eternally hungry, nothing can stop them from feeding… apart from a bullet to the brain of course. It’s these new forms of zombies that make Warm Bodies a little bit more substantial for the average zombie fan. The differentiation, both in terms of R’s narration and the general appearance make Warm Bodies much more palatable- beneath the sappy romance, there is an ongoing and constant threat from the zombies.

R 

The acting is, again surprising. Nicholas Hoult, also seen in popular British teen-drama Skins proved himself to be an adaptable, quite intelligent actor, and his attention to detail, such as his lack of blinking all added up to create a fairly unique role, and he was definitely the star of the show, while the rest of the cast stayed fairly mediocre. 

I really didn’t want, or even expect to like Warm Bodies,  but I did. While in some places it’s a bit clichéd (what else can you expect from a teen paranormal romance?!) it is genuinely funny, amazingly self-aware and, dare I say it, actually quite enjoyable.

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