Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies is a different take on a zombie movie-- a romance told from the eyes of a zombie mixed with a little twist of parody. The story is narrated by the zombie "R" as he wanders around without real purpose, in search of, you guessed it, brains. It's set after the apocalypse, an event fuzzy in R's mind. All he knows is that most of the population are now mindless zombies, and there remain very few humans. The plot really begins when "R" spontaneously saves a human girl whose boyfriend he ate, and as he spends more time with her, he begins to warm up: he starts to turn back into a human. But the girl, Julie's, dad is the head of the human military force/ mayor? of the last human encampment, so can their love ever be?

I thought this movie was a cute summer flick. The story line was straightforward and pretty predictable, but R was relatable and you rooted for him. I didn't really like Julie's character, though. The movie was very obviously marketed to teens; R's inner dialogue speaks of angst and questioning purpose, individuality, feeling lost, etc. and he had complete hipster music tastes- I mean, he had a record player in his airplane compartment.

I enjoyed the movie ( I was half-passed out with heat exhaustion while watching it, so maybe I was less inclined to be critical) but there were some things that I thought could have been better. The main weakness, I felt, was that the movie had a lot of great ideas that the writers never really followed through on. In the beginning, the film is presented as a sort of mild parody of a zombie story- the lines sort of make fun of what's happening, and it has a little bit of a sarcastic edge that forces you to crack a smile. But I think the story got too involved as it went along, and lost a lot of the comedy. To be a parody, the narrative has to have a certain distance and sense of humor from the events in the story, which this lacked.

I was actually very interested in the way the whole zombiepocalypse was presented as a criticism about today's teens. (i.e. the main character and many of the zombies lived in an airport-- they were set up and in the position to go places and yet lacked the drive to. The zombies shuffle around with no purpose and lack communication skills. R is trying to define himself and remember who he is, but he can't quite.) R's journey is definitely one of self-discovery, but the commentary on teens began to fade as you got deeper into the story line, and towards the end it was really a stretch to relate what was happening to the original ideas.

It was only towards the end of the movie that I realized the love story of R and Julie was a nod to Romeo and Juliet ( I had this little epiphany only when I saw Julie perched on a balcony speaking down to R and I sarcastically remarked "Who are you, Juliet?" after which I quietly went "Oh." and then curled up in embarrassment.) I could understand this to an extent-- the zombies as the Montagues and the humans as the Capulets, Julie's overbearing father, etc. But I got a little too excited and jumped straight to thinking the whole story had understatedly been mimicking the events of Romeo and Juliet, which it didn't. I think that little detail was thrown in there simply for the cute factor, but I wished they had followed through with it more.

Overall, it was a light viewing and not memorable but didn't offend me in any way and was enjoyable to watch :)