A fresh twist to the zombie genre -cute and heartwarming

Rating: 8/10 (21 July 2015)

This was cute, funny and kinda heartwarming giving a fresh twist to the zombie genre. Based on the book by Isaac Marion, the movie managed to capture 'R's' self deprecating, sarcastic and humorous voice especially in the beginning, as he describes his "life" to the viewer, what an average day is like for one of the undead shuffling around a post apocalyptic airport.
The beginning of this movie was super good. If I'm honest though I did find parts of this(maybe even as a whole) a little slow.
R is kinda tortured, seeking a connection as he feels there must be more. After he rescues 'Julie' from a zombie attack the two form a relationship and he experiences a profound transformation, becoming increasingly more human. There is a definite Romeo and Juliet vibe going on here as Julie is the daughter of a military leader (John Malkovich) charged with eradicating the undead. Their romance aspect was cute.
Teresa Palmer plays Julie and at times reminded me of Kristen Stewart, something about her look and the frown in her brow, her awkwardness. Nicholas Hoult does an excellent job as R, I enjoyed watching his transformation, his struggle with speech, memory, making his body work properly. I also liked Analeigh Tipton and Rob Corddry in their BFF roles. Dave Franco has a smaller "brainer" part.
The soundtrack mostly consists of 80's music and I should mention the "Bonies". They're the bad zombies here and reminded me of those stop motion sword fighting skeletons from that 1963 movie 'Jason and the Argonauts'. Very jerky looking. Not sure if this was intentional or not? 7/1/15