Warm Bodies (Movie Review)

(I got to see an extra-early screening this week. I give it a 6 bordering a 7...I wanted to be nice to it as I really did like it, but in scoring felt I should err on the side of criticism. Open February 1; see it with someone you respect for their brains...their juicy, juicy brains...)

The zombie genre is, let's face it, a little played out, and fresh perspectives and approaches are needed big time to keep it alive and kicking (pun intended). Such a thought gave us the likes of Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, which left the bar pretty high up for any potential followers. So along comes Warm Bodies, the latest in the zombie comedy sub-genre, and while it's scarcely anything revolutionary, it runs well on its goofy premise and delivers some good-natured ribbing to a few genre conventions.

The story is driven by "R" (the only part of his name he can remember) and his running narration, delivering most of the film's laughs through his strangely coherent observations, both of the zombie community through which he plods, and the increasingly silly events in the wake of what could be described as a "zombie beer run". Nicolas Hoult is easily likable, regardless how unnaturally photogenic - I dare say Twilight-ish - he looks for a walking corpse, and his human "exhuming" (a word thrown around a couple times in the film) is credible enough as he goes from the typical groans and grunts, to carrying on whole one- to two-word conversations (surviving possibly the most awkward "first date" imaginable), to finally forming near-complete sentences.

Teresa Palmer is the catalyst for these changes, and while she's incredibly cute and just as easy to like, her character is pretty one-note through the bulk of the story, mostly switching between "OMG zombies!" fear and the "What ARE you?" awe of R's transformation. The two highlights of the comedic casting are Rob Corddry as R's zombie buddy, who gets the film's single biggest laugh, and Analeigh Tipton as Julie's acerbic cohort with something of an Aubrey Plaza aura about her. Oppositely, Dave Franco - younger brother of James - is rather sleepy and boring as Julie's boyfriend, but his role is necessary to R's development, particularly in one wrenching introspective moment wherein R begins to truly reject his own zombie nature.

The film only opens itself up for more explosive laughs on one or two occasions, but the chuckles are consistent if light throughout. Fun is had at the expense of various zombie movie and romantic comedy cliches, namely in the eating of brains (a reason is actually provided for this behavior) and the use of montages; there are several throughout, the most successful of which includes a pretty genius bit of meta-humor as a character demands a change of background music - highlighting another of the movie's great strengths, its soundtrack.

Warm Bodies suffers on several levels, mostly because of the painfully obvious PG-13 rating. In its defense, violence and gore are clearly not the focus, but considerable cred is still lost when your zombie movie is this clean and bloodless and devoid of resonant human casualties, and in fact seems to go out of its way to be so. This results in the movie's main undead antagonists, the "Bonies" - zombies who claw off their flesh and give up any remaining pretense of humanity -  CG-rendered skeletal scavengers who should be the horror highlight, but instead look like videogame cutscene rejects whereas full-body makeup with choice CG enhancement would have made a world of difference.

The other less serious misstep is a tendency to take itself just a touch too seriously during its non-comedic moments. While a consistent light tone is established throughout the film, it never really dares to go too "out there" when it should. Even Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland's most dour moments kept one foot planted firmly in the realm of the absurd, and this is something Warm Bodies never manages to do when it isn't intentionally going for a laugh. Take the casting of John Malkovich as Julie's father and leader of the human colony; given the type of film, one might expect an open invitation to cut loose a little in the stock role as hardass overprotective military figure, but instead Malkovich mostly plays it straight, and thus a part that could have been memorable is reduced to a part that could have been played by anybody.

Warm Bodies is not likely to turn a whole lot of heads, but it is a fun, easygoing movie that makes a respectable effort to do something new with a tired platform. One can even walk away with a decent moral about stepping out of one's comfort zone and attempting to become a better person, along with the not-so-subtle message about "reconnecting". And with Valentine's Day just ahead of its February release, it may turn out to be just the right time for a chick flick...with zombies.