The film is not nearly as bad as 'TWILIGHT' (it's not even in the same league)!

Rating: 7/10 (7 February 2013)

'WARM BODIES': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)
A zombie romance film based on the popular 2011 book, of the same name, by Isaac Marion. The film was written for the screen and directed by Jonathan Levine (Levine also directed the exceptional 2011 comedy-drama film about cancer called '50/50'). This film stars Nicholas Hoult (who's most well known as 'Beast' in the latest 'X-MEN' films, in which he met his now ex-girlfriend Jennifer Lawrence) as a zombie who is self aware and starts to become more and more human as he falls in love with a human survivalist (played by Teresa Palmer). It co-stars Rob Corddry, Analeigh Tipton, Dave Franco and John Malkovich. It's an interesting and unique take on the classic zombie film (as well as romance and it's been compared to 'Romeo and Juliet'). Whether it works or not is debatable but I mostly enjoyed it.
The film is set in a zombie apocalypse where most of the human population has been turned into the undead, either the 'classic zombie' or a more severely inhuman skeletal like zombie creature known as 'bonies'. The surviving human population lives in a walled off enclave and are led by General Grigio (Malkovich). One day the General's daughter, Julie (Palmer), leads a group of her friends, including her boyfriend Perry (Franco) and best friend Nora (Tipton), out into zombie land to find medical supplies. They're attacked by zombies and Perry is killed by one, who's later known as R (Hoult). R is self aware (and narrates the film) and is immediately drawn to Julie. When R eats Perry's brain he's able to see his memories and learn more about her. He quickly develops feelings for Julie and rescues her from the other zombies and takes her to an abandoned airplane at a nearby airport. There the two oddly get to know each other as R becomes more and more humanlike.
The film has been praised and condemned for being the first zombie romance but it's not actually the first of it's kind. There's another zombie-romance-comedy film (a 25 minute short) on YouTube called 'REVENGE OF THE DEAD' (written, directed by and starring Tim Hellman) and it's a much better film. The movie has also been compared to 'TWILIGHT' for taking another classic monster film genre and turning it into a sappy romance; involving a 'hot' young girl falling for a 'hot' young monster. The film is not nearly as bad as 'TWILIGHT' (it's not even in the same league)! It's much better acted, much more cleverly written and much better directed. That's not to say it doesn't have it's flaws. I don't like all of the liberties it takes with the genre and Malkovich and Corddry are wasted in the film (what's the point in casting Rob Corddry if he doesn't have any lines, he's only a genius comedian because of what he says and how he says it). Palmer is strikingly beautiful in the film and a nice tough heroine (much better than Kristen Stewart) and Hoult is decent as her zombie love interest (which is much more than anyone can say for Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner). The movie isn't a great zombie film but it's a nice change (for the most part).
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