Forbidden love, zombies, introverted teenagers; all are in vogue right now. A love story doesn’t work unless there’s a difference in species, action movies are boring without some form of the undead, and the awkward is (finally) becoming cool and mysterious. “Warm Bodies,” which Wikipedia describes as a “paranormal romantic zombie comedy,” is the embodiment of these trends.
After some kind of unexplained apocalypse, humans have built a walled-up city that has every technological safeguard against “corpses,” which are essentially zombies. “Warm Bodies” is told from the point of view from one corpse (Nicholas Hoult,) who can only remember that his name started with an R and lives in a zombie-run airport. He is still capable of sentient thought, but mostly about zombie things like eating, staggering and grunting. While on a hunt with his corpse-pack, they come across a group of still-living people trying to get medical supplies. R experiences a moment of love-at-first-sight with one of the girls, Julie (Teresa Palmer,) but then kills and eats her boyfriend’s brains. He helps her escape then keeps her safe in his personalized airplane while absorbing her boyfriend’s memories of her, falling deeper in love with her. Slowly, his humanity starts to come back, which sets off a chain reaction with the other corpses.
“Warm Bodies” is primarily an awkward-teen movie. It features the typical introvert guy who falls for the pretty, outgoing girl (except they’re zombies!) It’s self-referential and tries to make fun of itself by pointing out zombie clichés, like the grunting and the slow-walking, but mainly just uses all that as a background for a love story. It’s like a cross between “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “Twilight” — in concept, not quality — but with a bit of “Walking Dead” thrown in there.
The awkward R parts were funny. He has old-school vinyl records because they have better sound, wears an oversized hoodie to hide himself, and prefers eating brains to get to know a girl rather than actually talking to her. What was really cliché was the constant ’80s movie montage of dancing to old music, laughing, while eating, and learning to drive a giant muscle car, but they again acknowledge the platitude by playing “Pretty Woman” during a makeover scene.
What bothered me most were the contradictory plot points in the movie. For example, corpses only grunt or say almost-words like “hungry” and “eat,” but they start to say complete sentences really quickly into the movie, albeit while raspily. Also, corpses are only supposed to move slowly, but they’re seen running quickly pretty often.
I did like the references to other zombie flicks and allusions to famous literary works. R and Julie (get it?) even share a balcony scene. Julie’s non-reaction to her boyfriend’s death and quick acceptance of a friendly corpse bothered me most because no one gets over something like that so quickly.
Hoult and Palmer had good chemistry, but they reminded me too much of Logan Lerman and a blonde Kristen Stewart. But don’t worry, Palmer actually did more than stare with her mouth wide open. Hoult is seriously trying to break into his Hollywood career, which is probably why he’s showing up in three movies this year alone. This shows his versatility between his arrogance in “Skins,” shyness in “X-Men,” and awkwardness here. We’ll keep an eye on him in “Jack the Giant Slayer.” That’s seriously a thing.
Keep in mind that “Warm Bodies” must be watched in a group setting. Don’t go see it by yourself or just with one other person, or it will give off a feeling of utter “meh.” The movie lacks a distinct energy, so the atmosphere of a movie theater with loud friends is completely necessary.
Runtime: 97 min.
Rating: PG-13
