Movie Review of Warm Bodies

Well I saw the new Zombie Apocalypse movie Warm Bodies and I have to say that it was quite a cute little movie. It is basically about a zombie slowly remembering what it was like to be human while falling in love with a girl that looks kind of vaguely like a blond Kristen Stewart. Much of the story is told via a voice over from the zombie main character and had me kind of thinking of Zombieland.

The plot is pretty standard love story. Zombie teen meets girl (Julie) after eating her ex-boyfriend. The zombie teen kidnaps the girl and has her stay with him in an airplane full of 70s and 80s kitsch. She then stupidly tries to escape twice and the zombie teen (named R) saves her both times. We also get introduced to a new zombie that is kind of a blackened skeleton that destroys both zombies and humans.

The girl and zombie boy, bond and fall in love, and then we have a pseudo-Romeo and Juliet story going on. Instead of the Capulets and Montagues we have humans and zombies. At least the story differs on quite a few points and pretty much only uses the names of the two characters as a basis. It isn't (thankfully) Romeo and Juliet with zombies. Also there was no freaky sexual component. I was so glad that there was no zombie on human insanity and they kept it a nice, chaste, teen love story.

This zombie apocalypses has a slightly different feel than Day of the Dead, and Walking Dead does. We have all the humans living in a big walled city and the zombies living everywhere else. The humans go out and forage for supplies and they are sometimes killed by zombies and skeletons. Some of the totally depressing feel of those aforementioned movies is not in Warm Bodies and it is a nice change.

One thing I thought was interesting is that the zombies eat brains not for sustenance necessarily but to gain the memories and thoughts of the humans brain. This makes some sense because it makes the zombie feel somewhat human again. I think that is a great add-on to the zombie mythology and can be a nice springboard to other zombie stories. I did find it odd that the zombies were cured with the power of love but I had to overlook it. It fits the story but it still feels very strange.

All and all this movie is a great Netflix rental and should be checked out if you like love stories but aren't repulsed by zombies. The zombies in this one aren't the messed up Walking Dead zombies but just makeup zombies like Night of the Living Dead.