This Movie Brings Life To A Genre That's Been Done To Death

Rating: 8/10 (3 February 2013)

After a cold and quiet January, Warm Bodies manages to warm and liven things up at the multiplexes. I will admit, when I first heard about this I thought of Twilight and what this movie would to the zombie genre that Twilight did to the vampire genre. A lot of people thought this as well and that's perfectly understandable but, I was pleasantly surprised. To compare this to Twilight is almost an insult. It's not perfect but, it's definitely charming and clever.
While I did enjoy this movie very much, I can't help but feel that the trailers promised so much more. This movie is many things, part horror, part comedy, part romance, part action, part romantic comedy but, this movie only achieves some of these and fails in others. The horror is kind of lame, the bonies are suppose to provide the horror but, they're horrible done and look really fake. There's some action but, none of it really gets the pulse pounding. I guess these problems have to do with the PG-13 rating, there's no zombies ripping people's guts out or zombie's heads being blown to bits. The PG-13 doesn't give it the edge that this movie needs. However, it does succeed in being funny and romantic, which makes up for these things towards the end.
Instead of the movie showing us everything through the human's point of view like in every zombie movie, we see everything from the zombie's point of view. Though it might be weird at first (zombies can actually think and talk to themselves inside their heads?) it's a unique and interesting twist. There are also more fresh twists along the way, like by the zombies eating human brains they actually get glimpses of past memories of the person the brain belongs too. While I've never heard of this, I liked it anyway. I thought it was a clever and well executed idea along with some of the other things the film makers throw at you.
With the exception of John Malkovich who just utters a few lines of dialogue, picks up a paycheck, then leaves, the acting is great. Nicholas Hoult is the stand out, and unlike Robert Pattinson who's come out in the past that he never liked playing Edward, that showed in twilight. Here, that's not the case with Hoult and he's really starting to become more known which is great because he's a good actor. I look forward to Jack the Giant Slayer coming out in a couple of months and the next x-men sequel. Teresa Palmer is better here than she was in both I Am Number Four and The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and she's gorgeous. Her and Hoult share effective chemistry, by the end I was rooting for these two which took me by surprise. Rob Corddry has the best lines, and Analeigh Tipton is sweet as Palmer's best friend. The rest of the cast don't do much, but they're good too.
What really sets this apart is that unlike Twilight, this movie never takes itself too seriously. This movie knows what it is and never tries to be anything more. Director Jonathan Levine stated in a couple of interviews that John Hughes was a big inspiration and it shows. They're many references to those movies. The nice 80's score also added to that and when the soundtrack comes out I plan on buying it. Then there was the issue with necrophilia, I mean this is about a girl falling in love with a corpse but, as you see in the trailer, the zombies begin to come back to life so no need to worry.
Warm Bodies couldn't have come out at a better time. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, you could do worse, a lot worse than Warm Bodies. Especially since Safe Haven, another Nicholas Sparks adaptation coming to the big screen on Valentine's Day. This has something for both the Ladies and the Men so I would recommend seeing this instead of another gag-inducing Nicholas Sparks movie. As for the zombie fans, you'll most likely be disappointed as there's not much zombie gore or action (thanks to the neutered PG-13 rating). This is after all Romeo and Juliet except with zombies, R(Romeo), Julie(Juliet). This probably won't become a classic like the John Hughes movies Warm Bodies references but, this is finally the first good picture of 2013( No I'm not counting Zero Dark Thirty or Silver Linings Playbook because they're technically are 2012 releases). This puts a nice spin on the zombie genre and although it's not particularly scary or action-oriented, it's still funny, clever and charming. As for you Ladies, I think your boyfriends would be much more forgiving dragging them to this movie instead of Safe Haven.