Really brain-dead fun

With the phrase ‘He was dead inside until he met her’ scrawled across the movie poster, my initial thought was, when did zombies become the new vampires?

Nothing sounds less romantic than a hollow-eyed creature that looks well past its expiry date feeding on human flesh … but could it be that everything I ever learned about zombies being the bad guys was wrong?

Not exactly! Although there’s still more than enough evil ‘bonies’ (zombies who have given up their humanity entirely) to represent the undead race, there’s also a much lighter side to Warm Bodies but, thankfully, this is not another Twilight film.

Director Jonathan Levine helms this adaptation of the novel with the same name, and uses the classic Romeo and Juliet scenario to make the obvious goofiness and melodramatic romance funny … and it works.

The movie may be too light-hearted to please the diehard zombie fans and it lacks enough cheese to draw the Twilight devotees in, but for everyone else this is 98 minutes of mindless entertainment.

The story revolves around a living ‘corpse’ named R (Hoult). Unfortunately, R doesn’t remember anything about his past when he was a human, not even his name.

 The viewers are introduced to R and his dead buddies through a voice over as they hang out at an airport in the post apocalyptic America where R and his best friend, M, (Rob Corddry) have ‘almost conversations’ and grunt back and forth at each other.

The lonely zombie uses an abandoned plane as his home, where he hordes various souvenirs and his prized record collection that features the very romantic John Waite’s I Ain’t Missing You, which makes him feel ‘alive’.

Everything is just peachy until R and his fellow zombies find a group of young teenagers to feed on.

R sets eyes on Julie (Palmer), daughter of General Grigio (Malkovich), whilst munching away on her boyfriend Perry’s (Dave Franco) brains. Bizarrely, he absorbs Perry’s memories … and cue a montage to the tune of I Ain’t Missing You. 

In an effort to save Julie from his zombie brethren, not to mention the terrifying ‘bonies’, R helps his new-found love escape and brings her to his plane.

He manages to keep her safe in his home for days and he feeds her tinned food he found in the airport. Initially Julie is scared and repulsed by the situation, but eventually she begins to suffer from Stockholm Syndrome … R doesn’t want to eat her brains – it must be love! And, better yet, their connection seems to cause R to become slightly less of a zombie and more human. 

Don’t get me wrong, the story is complete drivel and there will be moments where viewers will roll their eyes or have trouble believing the situation or the character’s interactions with one another. However, if like me, you can look past all the nonsense, you will find yourself entertained, laughing out loud and feeling warm at times you wouldn’t really expect.

Hoult is an extremely appealing young man and he brings a lot of life into R (even though he is dead) … you can see why Julie fancies him.

He’s grown a lot since his role in About A Boy and his charm is personified as R. At times he may have pushed the zombie mannerisms a little hard – resulting in some awkward scenes – but then again it’s a zombie fantasising about a human so I think the absurdity requires a bit of awkwardness.

However, in my opinion, Corddry stole the show. He was funny, charming and was a pretty good best friend. His one-liners created most of the laughs in the theatre, which was surprising, as most of his scenes were communicated through grunts and one-word responses.

Unfortunately, the living characters may have been better off playing the dead. Palmer was annoying and wasn’t that great at acting, I mean who listens to a zombie who just ate your boyfriend?

I don’t think everyone will enjoy this film as much as I did. It’s predictable, ridiculous and will leave many questions unanswered … but who cares? I laughed, I smiled and I had a good time.

*Showing in Cineco