Zombie Romeo and Juliet

Rating: 5/10 (12 April 2013)

I have to admit that it actually took me two sittings to finally get through this film; however, once you get past the utterly preposterous plot premise of this film, the movie turns out to be kind of cute in the most ridiculous set of circumstances that you could possibly imagine. The basic plot line is as follows: boy dies and turns into a zombie, boy kills girl's boyfriend, zombie eats boyfriend's brain, gain knowledge of girlfriend, zombie falls in love with girlfriend. You can easily see why after only the first 24 minutes of my first attempt to view this film, I quickly diverted to watching something else. However, the film does get better, and even somewhat more ludicrous as the film proceeds. But we will get to that
The film centers around "R", a teenage zombie with lots on his minds, but he is constrained within the rotting corpse of a zombie. He reminisces of days gone by, and collects household treasures that he can relate (snow globes, vinyl records). His only pleasure in his afterlife existence comes with the consumption of human brains. The brain holds all the memories and experiences of its human host, and all these events and recollections get transferred to the zombie as the brain is ingested. These life images provide the zombie with a brief euphoria of what it was like to be alive. So when "R" (Nicholas Hoult) ate Perry's brain (Dave Franco), Perry's memories of his girlfriend Julie (Teresa Palmer) came rushing into "R" s zombie soul. While feasting on Perry's brain "R" happens to glance up, and quickly realizes that Julie (his new memory) is about to ravaged by a horde of zombies as well. He rushes to save the damsel in distress, and thus ignites the first spark of life ever to be felt by the undead.
The story that follows is your typical dweeb boy falls for the hot cheerleader teen angst PG-13 film; however, writer/director Jonathon Levine does employ lots of zombie humor to keep this story fresh and fun. The longer Julie and "R" are together, the more human "R" becomes. However, turmoil arises when the truly undead, the "bonies", sense that their world is changing as the newly undead are starting to experience feelings. Add in that Julie's father (John Malovich) is the leader of the human resistance force to kill all zombies, and what you have here is a 21st century twist on a Zombie Apocalypse meets 'Romeo and Juliet' tragedy complete with its own balcony scene.
Needless to say, this is not Shakespeare nor does it try to be. This film is light-hearted fun with plenty of quirks to keep you amused. I actually found the closing five minutes really, really enjoyable with comments like "damn these zombie fingers" and "I no eat (you)". This is definitely not your typical rom-com, but under all that rotting flesh, a romantic comedy is exactly what this film becomes. A moderate recommendation, well worth the price of renting. So give this film a shot, and I think you may be pleasantly surprised.
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