not perfect... but you can still warm to it;

Rating: 7/10 (24 February 2013)

I went to see this with a lady friend of mine, in a really intimate screen with only 40 odd seats, and we and everyone else in the theatre had a good laugh at what is essentially a comedy, with a good sense of parody and amusement; it did have a dramatic element to it too, which is where it seemed to come off the rails, a little, for me.
The first 15 minutes, where R shuffles around the airport and introduces us to his world with his mentally delivered narration are brilliant, and left me terribly enthused about how it would unfold; his best friend at the bar, and the revelation that they could actually squeeze out a word or two, as well as the bonies, were intriguing and gave the zombie phenomenon in this story an identity and a logic which engaged me; I enjoyed the equal portions of comedy and brutality in the scene where he meets and takes Julie, too - not to mention that annoying intern from season 9 of Scrubs getting killed and his brain eaten by our main man/zombie - and settled back to enjoy the rest of the film. With it being a comedy they could have chosen a goofier route, but gratifyingly tried to retain a sense of an actual zombie apocalypse, producing comedy that shined through the otherwise bleak horror of it, which enhanced the comedy as far as I'm concerned. I also particularly loved the plot point that eating brains allowed the zombies to watch the memories of their victim; that was interesting and well presented in the film.
Then, it becomes apparent that R is starting to reanimate, miraculously... and then his best friend and other non-bony zombies at the airport also start showing signs of reviving, tangibly regaining a pulse and whatnot, seemingly triggered by R and Julie's burgeoning relationship and memories of a normal life and relationships garnered from posters at the airport... hmm.
The first Pokemon movie had the same plot point. Ash gets turned to stone when Mew and Mewtwo face off, but then Pikachu and all the pokemon and their clones who Mewtwo created start crying and basically their emotions, i.e. their tears bring Ash back to life. Just saying.
I'm not writing this movie off, in spite of that. For one thing, it has plenty of hilarious lines, particularly Hoult's narration, American accent an' all, and even when it does get a little goofy and girly with Julie and her friend applying make-up, there's an interesting aspect that makes that worthwhile;
Allow me to explain. In Twelfth Night, the character Viola dresses up as a man, disguising herself to fit in and work, which made for an interesting performance because female parts in plays were usually played by young, possibly androgynous men in Shakespeare's day - therefore, if you went to see Twelfth Night at the Globe or wherever back then, you'd have watched a man playing Viola, a woman pretending to be a man. Interesting, right! the make-up thing is a nod to that, i think, because Hoult wears zombie make-up for his role as a zombie in the film, who is then given make-up in the story by the girls to in turn look like a human.
This reference to Shakespeare is of course pertinent because R and Julie have obvious parallels with Romeo and Juliet, not least the balcony scene which precedes the make-up scene, Julie's dad played by Malkovich not accepting the relationship - at first, anyway - and of course the overriding sentiment that love can break down all barriers.
In addition to this particularly 'romantic' edge, there were also plenty of moments where the pedant in me strained against certain plot points and moments in the film, such as where R managed to successfully break into the human stronghold and even find Julie's house without detection, or Julie not reacting with more anger or despair when R eventually admitted he was the one who killed her Scrubs boyfriend, or even when the bonies don't jump after R and Julie at the end, and other little things like that, but ultimately, it wasn't enough to spoil the film, which was pretty funny throughout and also interesting enough to be a worthwhile experience. it embodied the symbiosis between a zombie apocalypse and a romantic comedy as well as it could and the body of work was generally well made. Depending on who you are, you might not be especially enamoured with some aspects of the film but I did warm to it and we all had a laugh and it helped make my evening with Ash a lovely one so I'll give this one a 7/10!