Review: Warm Bodies (2013)
When I first saw the previews for Warm Bodies, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It’s obvious from the get-go that they planned on putting some spin on the classic zombie story whereby the walking dead end up becoming sentient in some way. It was also billed as a love story between the living and the dead. And while these two elements scream comedy, the actual result for Warm Bodies was a story that speaks about the isolation of human beings and their eventual redemption.
The story begins with “R”. He’s a zombie. He’s called R because zombies don’t generally remember their own names. They don’t generally remember much of anything, to be honest, but something in R is changing. As it turns out, when zombies eat brains (yup, it’s that old cliché), they get to experience the memories of the person they’re devouring. Since zombies can not sleep, it’s the closest that they can get to dreaming.
When R munches on a guy’s brain he ends up developing an affection towards the dead guy’s girlfriend, Julie. So he saves her from the other zombie hordes and hides her away in the jumbo jet he’s turned into his home. R also happens to collect things, so his home is filled with all sorts of strange objects, from knick-knacks to a sizeable record collection. It becomes apparent to Julie that R is unlike the rest of the zombie masses.
Eventually, Julie must return home to the compound that houses the remnants of humanity. R, realizing that something strange is happening to both him and many of the zombies around him, sets out to find Julie and hopefully convince the surviving humans that the undead are “getting better”.
The premise of Warm Bodies is pretty silly, the dead coming back to life because they develop emotions. Of course, it’s not supposed to be taken literally. The zombie apocalypse is just a backdrop to the real story this movie tells. Human beings have become dead inside, wandering the face of the Earth in a daze. Some fall too far and become the truly evil “boneys”, incapable of redemption. For the rest, all it takes is a trigger to awaken the person they once were
Warm Bodies bounces back and forth between its primary message, bits of ridiculous zombie-themed comedy and the bleaker world of life after the undead apocalypse. It threw me off a bit, the way it would change, but I think the parts that shine are worth the few speed bumps along the way. All-in-all, it’s an entertaining film, if not a perfect one.
The folks over at Rotten Tomatoes gave Warm Bodies a 80/74%, which I would tend to agree with. Lovers of independent film will probably get a kick out of it, but not every person will find the message of Warm Bodies quite as well-spoken as I did.
Photo Credits -
Warm Bodies courtesy of therackedfocus.com