Warm Bodies: Movie Review

Warm Bodies: Movie Review

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Corddry, John Malkovich, Analeigh Tipton
Director: Jonathan Levine

Zombies - they do actually have a heart you know.

In this offbeat non-traditional girl meets boy romance, Nicholas Hoult stars as zombie R, who's an oddly introspective member of the undead. He spends his time shuffling around and trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world where the population's been turned into zombies.

One day, when out hunting, R meets Julie (Teresa Palmer) and decides to save her from the masses on an impulse. Hiding her away, R begins to form a relationship with her, and it starts in many ways, to bring him back to life.

But it turns out Julie is the daughter of military man, Grigio (Malkovich) who's in charge of the safety of the rest of the planet...Coupled with the fact, a skeletal race known as the Bonies, are looking to attack anything with a vague semblance of a pulse, and R's got his work cut out.

The Warm Bodies movie is not your traditional zombie flick.

In fact, it's a smart, funny, warmly amusing sly take on the old tale of Romeo and Juliet (R and Julie??) while managing to bring something entirely different and welcome to the genre with a new and intriguing twist on the undead apocalypse.

It works in a large part, due to Nicholas Hoult's clever underplaying of the romantic lead and the story's messing with tropes of the rom-com genre. Throwing in a voiceover and subtly turning the first part of the film into a universal look at how we fail to communicate with each other (R's best friend, played by Rob Corddry, and he communicate by a series of grunts and argghs) and then goes into the eternal question of how to talk to girls, Hoult gives it his all. And it works so well in parts - that you're even able to overlook some of the holes of the plot later on (such as how the zombie hordes can suddenly all speak )


Teresa Palmer may look a little like a blonde Kirsten Stewart but that initial distraction soon wears off thanks to the cleverness of the film and the offbeat humour on display. Rob Corddry deserves mention for his excellent turn as R's mate - and he gets the worthy lion's share of the laughs too. There are a few jolts throughout too, which are a welcome reminder of what you're watching.

Warm Bodies is a charming piece of sincere film-making - it'll amuse and delight in equal measures and it's definitely worthy of your affections.

In fact, you could almost say it puts the beating heart back into the undead world.

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