Best zombie comedy since "Shaun of the Dead"

Rating: 8/10 (16 June 2013)

Obviously intent on drawing Twilight crowds, director Jonathan Levine brilliantly redefines a genre laden with history mixing the expected romantic twist to the tale with the unexpected hilarity of subverting teenage drama into a zom-com. In a not-so-distant future the world has been overcome by zombies with the last outposts of the living in heavily guarded fortresses. Meanwhile the dead walk the Earth, pointlessly and repeatedly wandering along oft-tread paths, mechanically searching for live brain. Those zombies, who have entirely detached from their humanity (given up the vestiges of hope), have turned into soulless remnants called 'bonies', entirely ravaged by the virus - now faster and consumed by an overwhelming blood lust.
The rest, like R (blue-eyed Nicholas Hoult) still hang on to some past memory of being human, eating brains a way to re-immerse into the living (brain-eating causes the zombie to steal other peoples memories), whilst spending the multitude of spare time collecting vinyls and having quasi-conversations with fellow undead M (Rob Corddry). When Julie (Teresa Palmer), daughter of general Grigio (John Malkovich), falls into a zombie trap, R (after prior munching through the skull of her fiancée) creates an unusual affinity to the girl, thus causing him to spare her life. This soon brings about a spiral of events, which surprisingly causes R to slowly uncover the ability to speak or to harbour feelings.
Levine obviously was inspired by the vampire craze initiated by the Twilight series, audaciously deciding to take Teresa Palmer as the female protagonist. Due to significant facial similarities coupled with a dose of mimicry Palmer could well claim to be a sister of Kristen Stewart. But "Warm Bodies" uses these similarities to introduce a new take on the zombie genre, while bringing in new crowds in on the fun. Bound to cause some confusion amongst Meyers fan-base as to what exactly this movie is, Levine isn't however really interested in making fun of "Twilight" (although certain nods can be easily distinguished). Instead he quickly finds his own pace and style within this illogical romantic scenario of a dilapidated corpse falling madly in love with a live girl. Masterfully balancing the more sincere, dramatic moments with an onslaught of well timed, brilliantly thought out comedy, the movie succeeds in throes, delivering one of the freshest pictures of the season. Much praise must be given to the obviously restrained Nicholas Hoult, who mostly communicates with 'ughs' and 'ers', throwing the occasional crooked smile, while delivering the comedic underpinning with a wry narration of his thoughts.