Jonathan Levine’s ‘Warm Bodies’ is based on Isaac Marion’s 2011 bestseller of the same name, which itself is a re-telling of William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ but way more awesome. The movie stars Nicholas Hoult (Skins, X Men: First Class) as R, a zombie who, despite the whole “being dead and eating people’s brains” thing, happens to be a pretty nice guy, who’s simply trying to find some purpose in his uneventful afterlife.
Although he appears to the outside world a shuffling, groaning monster, you find out that there is a lot more to R, as he (through voiceover) describes his world, his days spent attempting conversation with his grunting best friend M, played by Rob Corddry (Hot Tub Time Machine), and eating the brains of the living in order to experience their memories. Corddry makes an awesome zombie, by the way.
R eventually meets with the very much alive Julie, played by Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four) – just after he has eaten her boyfriend. This event sparks a change inside of R that has consequences for humans and zombie-kind alike. R tries to win Julie’s affections while trying to keep his fellow undead from making her their next meal, and away from hella-nasty ‘bonies’, terrifying creatures that are what zombies become after losing all of their humanity.
Over time Julie begins warming up to R, but just like Romeo and Juliet, they face strong opposition from her military leader father, played by the ever-talented John Malkovich, who is kinda hell-bent on exterminating the zombies, after losing Julie’s mother to zombiedom.
In addition to directing, Levine also wrote the screenplay. And though the story and the writing are both very clever, the thing that makes the movie is the stars’ performances, because all of the actors brought their A-game. Teresa Palmer, who had a small part in 2010’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and played one of the super-powered teens in 2011’s I Am Number Four, really didn’t get a chance to impress. But in Warm Bodies she gets to be brave, funny, and actually makes flirting with a zombie seem like a good idea.
Palmer is good, yes, but gets a lot of help from fellow actor Nicholas Hoult. All of the movies that we’ve seen him in show this guy’s kind of offbeat charisma, which seems to carry him well. He played The Beast in 2011’s X-Men: First Class, and had this gentle/fierce combo thing going for him. And do you remember About a Boy? He was the aforementioned boy. The kid wasn’t particularly charming, but he won Hugh Grant over anyway. So excellent casting, movie peoples.
Anyways, Warm Bodies is full of lots of really clever lines (especially with R’s inner monologue) and physical comedy, and to us that makes the movie worth checking out. And while you might not break your neck getting to the theatre to watch it, Warm Bodies is definitely worth paying to see.
Photos courtesy Summit Entertainment.
