"Am I the only one?" asks R, a lonely, average teenager who just happens to be stuck in the body of a zombie. Right off the bat, it's clear that Warm Bodies is no ordinary zombie flick. Two things distinguish it. First, its a comedy, not another mindless action movie. Second, it twists the conventions of the genre to tell a story from the point of view of the zombies, showing the creatures as sympathetic, misunderstood beings who have forgotten what it means to be human.
R doesn't remember how he was killed and became a zombie. He just knows that he somehow ended up in an abandoned airport which the zombies have turned into their residence. R walks around, studying his fellow comrades, occasionally communicating through monosyllabic words, grunts, and shrugs. That's standard zombie fare, but Warm Bodies immediately goes deeper to find out the inner workings of its protagonist.Turns out, as we find out through voiceover, R is nothing more than an average, awkward teenager who has a little trouble with getting his words out, especially to the girl he likes.
During a hunt for food, R comes across Julie, the beautiful daughter of a crazed general (John Malkovich), and immediately falls for her. Instead of eating her, and after conveniently eating her boyfriend, he saves her from the other zombies and hides in his home.
It was a great choice to have R be a teenager as the film draws a neat parallel between a teenage boy's clumsy attempts to talk to a girl with his state as an illiterate zombie. The film also gets a number of laughs out of this as R desperately tries, and sometimes fails, to “not be creepy, not be creepy” (as he repeats to himself) in front of Julie.
At first, R is too shy to even say a word, which poses a problem for the poor, terrified Julie. R's solution: music. Whenever he can't find the words, R trusts that some old album will communicate his feelings for him. Guns N' Roses' "Patience" plays, for example, when R tries to find a more direct way of communicating with Julie. Another great use of music is Bob Dylan's "Shelter from the Storm," which plays as R gets Julie to stay with him for a few days in the abandoned airplane he calls home. Too obvious, perhaps, but you won't hear me complain about a well-placed Bob Dylan song in a good movie.
But they can't stay in paradise forever, so Julie goes back home only to find that her father is planning one final attack against all zombies. R, however, won't let her go and follows her into the last remaining human city. Together, they must stop their respective clans from annihilating each other. Sound a little familiar? the Romeo and Juliet references are laid on just a little too heavy for my taste, but they never become too bothersome.
At one point, Julie's best friend complains that she would like to find a cure in the internet for her friend who has fallen in love with a zombie. In this phone-less, internet-less, post-apocalyptic world, people are forced to rely on older technologies. R has an obsession with old vinyl records while Julie loves to take photographs with old film cameras. When they're together, they're not glued to their smartphones; instead they must contend with the fact that they have to talk to each other. It’s a refreshing change of pace to see a modern day romance without the hassle of digital technology.
On top of that, Warm Bodies is also a decent zombie film with scary "boneys” (a class of skinless, brainless, zombies) providing the film with perfect antagonists and an excuse for humans and zombies to join together behind R and Julie to extinguish them. It’s a neat, sentimental ending that conveniently resolves everything, but the movie earns it.
For a film about miscommunication, Warm Bodies gets its points get across extremely well, not only through R's internal monologues, but also through the visuals such as R’s red bright sweater that distinguishes him from his colorless zombie peers, and a lovely montage sequence set to Bruce Springsteen's "Hungry Heart" as Julie and R fall in love. This is one of the year’s best as well as the best zombie movie since Shaun of the Dead.
Verdict- 3.5/4
Warm Bodies (2013) 1h 38min. PG-13
Random Thoughts
-The Perks of Being a Wallflower (a superior film) is featured in the trailers at the start of the DVD. These two films would make a terrific double feature.
-Zombie psychology 101: It’s a nice detail that the closest zombies come to dreaming is by eating human brain and stealing the memories of the victim. Tough world, thinks R. That issue, he simply shrugs off
