Sometimes there is a movie that pisses
you off so much, you become weary of any future movies that come out
that have the same premise as that movie. For me, one of those movies
is Twilight; the film franchise that somehow became a worldwide
phenomenon despite the fact that it is was nothing more than a
poorly-written, poorly-acted, and just poorly-made melodrama. So as
you might have guessed, I wasn't really looking forward to 'Warm
Bodies', a film that has the same premise of a human girl falling
love with a paranormal creature, in this case a zombie, and was from
the same company that distributed Twilight, Summit Entertainment. But
believe it or not, 'Warm Bodies' is a really good film for pretty
much doing what Twilight failed to do in many areas, from the romance
to actually making its two leads likable.
The film takes place after the world is
affected by a zombie apocalypse. One zombie in particular (Nicholas
Hoult), who remembers that his name started with an 'R', spends most
of his days wandering around an airport along with the other zombies
while any surviving humans are hidden from the zombies in a heavily
guarded enclave. One day, when a group of young men and women head
out to acquire medical supplies, R and some other zombies attack and
R ends up eating the brains of one of the humans, Perry Kelvin (Dave
Franco). However, by doing so, he starts to fall in love with Perry's
girlfriend Julie (Teresa Palmer), the daughter of General Grigio
(John Malkovich), the leader of the human resistance. As R and Julie
start to fall in love, R starts to become more human, a change that
is spreading to his fellow zombies as well.
For the record, this is a very simple
story (it's pretty much Romeo an Juliet, just with zombies) so if
you're a huge zombie fan, then you might be a little disappointed
with this film as it takes a couple of liberties in how they portray
zombies here. It's a romantic comedy first, and a zombie film second
so it's going to be a little cheesy. Still, for a romantic comedy,
this actually has to be one of the best-written romantic comedies in
recent years. Sure, there could have been just a bit more humor, but
once this film gets going, it ends up being really entertaining. A
lot of the humor comes from R's inner monologue because, of course,
he's a zombie and he can't speak as well as a human. Overall, the
writing is quite solid though they could have gone just a bit farther
with the premise.
Speaking of R, the character is what
really sells the movie for me. Remember, this is a film that is in
the same genre as the film starring a dull and creepy vampire who
pines for a teenage girl who is at least a century younger than him.
R, on the other hand, is very engaging, and as mentioned earlier,
funny thanks to his inner monologue. You really have to hand it to
Nicholas Hoult for his performance here, as he clearly blows Robert
Pattinson out of the water and does a terrific job. As for Teresa
Palmer, while her character is just a little flat, she also does a
good job as well. Because of these two, I was able to get into the
romance which, of course, I could never get into with Twilight
because it was just boring and the two leads were just straight up
unlikable. This film's romance is actually pretty sweet.
Basically what I'm trying to get across
here is that for those of you thinking that this film is just a
'Twilight clone', you will be surprised by how good this film
actually is. Sure, it's not perfect; there could have been some more
humor and maybe it could have been a little less cheesy. But still,
for a romantic comedy, it's one of the better films from this genre
that I have seen in a while. If anything else, it's a hell of a lot
better than Twilight because I was actually able to get into the
romance and the male lead was really engaging. For anyone like me who
had to suffer through the Twilight films, this will be a breath of
fresh air for you.
Rating: 4/5
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