NEWS
EVENTS
Warm Bodies
Thursday 14th March 2013 | Adam
There is a small market for the Zom-Rom-Com, probably due to society’s longstanding taboo on necrophilia, but once this troubling hurdle is overcome Warm Bodies reveals itself to be more a more charming affair than it is a disturbing one.
Separating it from others entries in the zombie pantheon, the Warm Bodies narrative doesn’t follow a survivor’s journey in an apocalyptic wasteland, but that of R (Nicholas Hoult), a corpse with an above average intelligence. As he shambles around an airport at the start of the film, we are treated to his comically deadpan view on existence, and what it means to be a smart zombie…that is, alone and unable to communicate the vivid thoughts he has to his fellow deadheads, only being able to feel a degree of relief when he's feasting on someone's brains. It’s quite possibly the only time since Billy Connolly in Fido that anyone could feel sorry for a flesh-eater.
Events change when R meets Julie (Theresa Palmer) and falls for her, rescuing her from the horde and giving her shelter. From there, she begins to change her views on the undead from creatures she needs to kill, to people she’d rather dance to Bruce Springsteen records with. It may be weird, but it’s the efforts of R to not creep her out by acting human that lead to some of the funnier moments in the film. If you aren’t averse to a young girl bonding with a corpse over canned fruit and brains, you'll be won over immediately.
However, it isn’t Hoult and Palmer who get the biggest laughs, but rather Rob Corddry as R’s monosyllabic “best friend” M. As sweet as R and Julie’s romance is, the screen feels a little empty whenever M fails to appear. When he finally returns, he delivers one of the finest pep-talks in zombie film history.
The film is messy and uneven in places, especially in regards to the underdeveloped relationships between Julie and her father (John Malkovich), and the finale is wrapped up too hastily for anyone to truly be affected by anything that happens. And for a film about flesh-eating cadavers, it isn’t particularly scary. Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland had at least some disturbing moments; the film’s “Bonies” end up being more shrill than terrifying.
But amidst a sea of tweenage romances about mopey dead guys falling in love with mopey living girls, at least Warm Bodies has the distinction of not taking itself too seriously and creating a warmer film than most romantic comedies involving pulses can.
Warm Bodies is in cinemas now.
Adam Hofmeister
