Romeo and Juliet and Zombies

Rating: 6/10 (25 April 2020)

Although an adaptation of a novel, "Warm Bodies," the book and the movie, are clearly a reworking of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." "Julie" is short for Juliet, and "R" is for Romeo. Julie and R... are star-crossed lovers, and the feuding corpses and the living are the Montagues and Capulets. This all becomes exceedingly blatant in the balcony scene. Modern rom-coms, however, lack the heart, brains or guts for tragic romance, let alone iambic pentameter, and so we get skeletons, too, and a different ending. Instead of poetry, popular music. The awkward teenage yearning is still there, though. Dreams and monologues, too.
I'm surprised to see that some commenters are surprised that they enjoyed this at all. "Romeo and Juliet" has been revered for over 400 years, and "Warm Bodies" is "Romeo and Juliet"--albeit watered-down in its transmutation to the modern rom-com and zombie genres. But, yeah, cribbing Shakespeare works to an extent, because some of it's still as good as Shakespeare. It's just a rather, if you'll excuse me or not, undead version of the bard--grunting more than literate, not original but exhumed. There's a reason the zombie is the protagonist and narrator (other than traditional sexism); it's because this romance doesn't invent culture--doesn't breath life into it--it collects and hordes it: records, snow globes, even red convertibles and a lousy issue of People magazine. It consumes culture and life like zombies do flesh and brains, half-remembered and cannibalistic.