Delightful zomromcom

Rating: 7/10 (23 September 2013)

Zombies admittedly are having a big break on the silver screen this year. While World War Z is the sort of epic flick meant for the usual audiences blockbuster movies are made for, the zom-romcom Warm Bodies should attract crowds looking for more unusual horrific fare, and even – gods willing – teenage girls that want to fill the gap left by the finale of the Twilight movies by exploring similar themed films. Fortunately, the fact this movie combines thematic elements from the horror genre with all the qualities of romance is as far as the parallel between Twilight and Warm Bodies ought to be drawn, as the latter is a delightful off-beat comedy that hopefully will stay a one-shot instead of being milked for many more movies to come. The film follows R (Nicholas Hoult of X-Men: First Class and Jack the Giant Slayer fame), a teenage zombie male who does what zombies usually do: incoherently move about the place looking for people to eat, either alone or in a pack with his undead friends. One day he happens upon the brains of a living teenage boy, and after devouring them finds he is attracted to his girlfriend Julie (Teresa Palmer), the sole survivor of the zombie attack that claimed her boyfriend's life. Hiding her from the other living corpses, R soon displays amorous behavior towards her, or attempts at such as good as any dead boy could make, and because of these sudden feelings appears to regain his past humanity slowly but surely. Eventually the plot allows for a certain degree of romance between the pair which is developed compellingly enough to make it rise above its ludicrous premise. The problem the fledgling lovers face is how to overcome the prejudices dominant in a world where one group in society aims to eat the other. Matters are complicated by the fact Julie's father (John Malkovich) is the stern and uncompromising leader of the human survivors, while the rise of a subspecies of zombies named 'Bonies', zombies so far gone they have lost every shred of humanity and form a danger to both humans and regular zombies, also is cause for concern. Can R and Julie's mutual love for each other bridge the differences between both groups in time for man and dead man to overcome their hatred and unite against their common foe? As the movie draws towards its close, the plot focuses more on action and the expected preachy messages, but it's the first half of the movie that makes for a wonderfully funny viewing experience totally worth your while as R, via voice-over, details his dreary everyday life, illustrating a zombie's daily routine to hilarious results. While people who might fear the love affair between live girl and dead boy is not convincingly carried through, they're in for a nice surprise. In fact, it turns out there's not so much difference between the awkward experiences of young love as seen through a dead boy's eyes as there is from a living one. Few guys who tried to hit on girls in their teen years won't recall similar instances of acting odd in front of the opposite sex that made them wish they were dead, right?