Warm Bodies (2013)

 Yesterday, when I was attempting to figure out what to do on my Friday night, I decided to peruse the Internet for local movie showings. To my luck, one of the theaters was showing a movie at 5 o’clock and the movie ticket price was only $4!! Yes that is right $4… It is almost impossible to find such a cheap movie ticket these days. The movie they were showing was Warm Bodies (2013), which is a movie directed by Jonathan Levine and written by Isaac Marion and Jonathan Levine. I’m not going to lie… I had seen some trailers for this movie and being a Walking Dead addict, I was intrigued.

            The plot of Warm Bodies takes place in a post apocalyptic world after a zombie outbreak. There are two kinds of undead, the corpses and the “bonies”. The main character is a corpse that later gets named R (Nicholas Hoult). R is not a typical zombie because he is young, introspective, and eventually resents his nature. One day when a group of the corpse zombies decide to go find humans to feed on, R meets a girl named Julie (Teresa Palmer) and instantly feels the desire to protect her and to know her. After protecting her and saving her life numerous times, R starts to change. As their relationship develops, R starts to become more and more human-like and this spreads to a number of other corpses who begin to feel again. Eventually a mutual threat for the corpses and the humans becomes evident and they start to work together to defend themselves. I won’t give away the ending though because everyone hates a spoiler…

            Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. I thought the plot was clever with the new twist on zombie movies. However, there was one thing that kept happening throughout the movie that I had an issue with. Whenever the movie became ominous with chase scenes, the bonies, and other typical zombie movie objects, I would start to settle in to the mindset of watching a horror movie. I would get jumpy, my adrenaline would shoot up, and I would be cheering for the main characters. The problem is, whenever I would get used to the zombie movie mindset, they would pull the rug out from underneath me and it would become a chick-flick or a rom-com. There were a number of funny moments in the film, many of which, gave the vibe that the film was a romantic comedy. As much as I enjoyed the film it was almost unsettling how the movie would shift back and forth between horror and romantic comedy. I could never really expect a certain thing from the movie because it really couldn’t fit in to one genre. Although it was a bit unsettling, it made the film different and interesting in a way.

            If you don’t believe me that the film was good, ask rotten tomatoes, which gave a 78% tomatometer. If you know rotten tomatoes, they can be pretty stingy with their ratings so I am impressed (as I would be with any film that had decent reviews from them) that Warm Bodies received such good rating. This film is kind of the perfect medium for 1- people who don’t like scary movies but want a little thrill and 2- people who don’t like gushy girly romantic comedies. Whenever it would start to get too mushy romantic, there would be some crazy zombie movie moment that would break the romance and get you back on the edge of your seat (ex. Awww they are holding hands and walking through the corpses who are letting them pass because they are starting to feel again, but WAIT oh no! They are being chased by crazy looking skeleton bonie zombies!). On the other hand, whenever it would start to get creepy, there would be a scene that would bring you back to the romantic comedy side of the film.

            If you like romantic comedies and can handle some zombies I would suggest seeing the film. The trailer is below and it is really WORTH WATCHING:::