Warm Bodies Review

On December 21, 2012, the world was predicted to end. The Zombie Apocalypse was a commonly thought up event that people thought was going to end it. Well, we are now in February of 2013 and none of that ever happened. I don't actually think there were too many people that really thought this was going to happen, but what it did inspire was a bunch of movie makers wanting to depict the event on the big screen. Thus in 2013 there are multiple end of the world movies, a few of them being zombie end of the world movies. Now it's true that this zombie movie idea isn't groundbreaking. There are a lot of zombie movies out there. There are even a good number of end of the world movies. But this is just a newly revived craze for this year and Warm Bodies is first up at bat. In my opinion, it hits a home run.

Warm Bodies is actually based off a book of the same name written by Isaac Marion. I have heard good things about the book, but I have not read it myself so I cannot give a book vs movie comparison in this review. After seeing the trailer as well as the first four minutes of the movie (here is the link from YouTube), I decided that I was really excited to see the movie. What I expected from it was a rom-com. While I did get that, what I didn't expect, but probably should've, was a full out genre mesh. This wasn't just a silly zombie rom-com, it was also an intense zombie action thriller at times. Thus it makes for a very clever movie that is perfect for both guys and girls. But not children. This isn't a family-friendly movie. The premise of this movie is as follows. While the year is not stated, it is a time on earth where zombies are slowly taking over. If a human gets bitten by a zombie, they will turn into one. There are two types of zombies, corpses and bonies. Corpses still look like their former human selves but aren't. The bonies are corpses that have completely given up and turned into skeleton zombies that have no soul or conscience at all. The humans that are left are in a war with the zombies. With that background in mind, our movie begins when our main female lead is part of a group of humans leading an attack on the zombies, but when they aren't expected it, they get invaded by a group of corpses, of which our main male lead, a zombie named R (he can't remember the rest of his name), is a part of. However, due to a certain chain of events that I won't mention here, R decides to save Julie from this zombie attack and kidnaps her to protect her. Thus leads to a story that, while fairly predictable, is very clever and fun.

First off I will have to give props to a certain crew that I don't think I've ever given props to and that would be the makeup department. The zombie corpses all looked fantastic and realistic. And speaking of zombies, the CGI bonies also looked pretty good. And of course, going along with good makeup had to be good people under the makeup. The zombie acting was really good. All the acting, for that matter, was pretty good, especially the two leads - Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer. Nicholas Hoult is The Beast in X-Men: First Class, which I didn't even know until I looked it up afterwards. Once again, props to the makeup department for making great looking zombies. Hoult was doing the narrating for the movie as well, speaking in first person as his zombie character and that made things interesting as we went back and forth from his cohesive thoughts to him trying his hardest to express himself through words with his limited vocal abilities. And Teresa Palmer certainly did a great job of being the pretty female character. What made things better was that she was a smart, useful, AND pretty. You don't often get that in a movie girlfriend. If you don't know Teresa Palmer, she is also the blonde girl in I Am Number Four, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and Bedtime Stories. Before I move on from actors, while a lot of the crew does a great job, in addition to who I've previously mentioned, I have to give a shoutout to John Malkovich as Julie's (Teresa Palmer) dad. In terms of pure acting, he was probably the best in the movie. Finally, I have to give props to the music. This movie went back and forth from being serious and funny quite a bit and the music is what really helped pull that off.

I don't have a ton of complaints, but there is a few things I can mention. Now this first isn't really a complaint on my side because I didn't have a problem with it, but if you are looking for a movie that is deep, has a super profound and non-cliche message, and is completely unpredictable, Warm Bodies is not for you. Personally, though, I didn't think any of those were necessary for us as an audience to be entertained. My biggest problem came with language. I'm not a fan of language in the first place, but there are some movies that do it somewhat smartly and other movies that you can tell it is forced. Warm Bodies is the latter, especially with the f-bomb that is completely unnecessary. There was also a scene where Julie is laying in bed with R on the floor and she tells him that her clothes are wet and she needs to hang them out to dry. So we as an audience get to watch her strip down into her underwear before she jumps back into her covers. Luckily it doesn't last long and we see nothing from the front, only the back. But it was still a useless scene that was only thrown into the movie in attempt to be a little risque.

Overall, though, I think this is a great movie. When you talk about Valentine's Day, it's usually the case where a guy somewhat reluctantly takes his girl to see a chick flick. He doesn't really enjoy the movie, but he enjoys being with his girl and scoring brownie points because he took her to that movie. With Warm Bodies it is not quite that way. The girls will enjoy it because it has the romance story line and the guys will like it because of the zombie action in it, so you get the both of best worlds. A perfect Valentine's Day movie in my opinion. I give it an 8 out of 10.