A number of years into a worldwide zombie apocalypse, and the number of humans still surviving is becoming scarce, what with the mixture of both regular brain-seeking zombies and a race of creatures called bonies – creatures which eat anything with a heartbeat with no confliction or doubts about it. One such zombie is 'R' (Nicholas Hoult), who at this stage of his (after)life resides in an airplane and occasionally has a grunt-filled conversation with "best friend" 'M' (Rob Corddry). But after an attack on a pack of humans searching for supplies leads to the death of one human's boyfriend (Dave Franco) through R eating his brain, he quickly becomes infatuated with said girl (Teresa Palmer's Julie) through the simple fact that eating human brains allows zombies to feel some form of past life or emotion. And so, he saves her from being devoured from the various other zombies and the two form some kind of friendship. Not helping though is R's newly found conscious and attraction to the living woman, and in turn her depression over her loss and the possibility that her father – John Malkovich's survivor leader – will likely annihilate R upon discovery despite his differences. So can the two fight through that and form an unlikely relationship? Of course they will, this is a Young Adult adaptation with supernatural characters. This ain't no Me and Earl.
Can you tell the Romeo and Juliet parallels yet? You know, the split between society, only this time it's not between two families but instead two species, with a tertiary species for the two to gang up against for the third act, and the two main factions spawning some form of disagreeable romance which will end up bringing them both together? Well, aside from the fact that they both don't end up dead in the end (this ain't Fault in Our Stars), you've hit the nail on the head of on those allusions. So when the film isn't following a pre-conceived story arc that you'll likely find better in countless other adaptations, it opts for the 'different worlds' approach, which works a lot better. Sure, it certainly feels a lot forced, with some of those 'romance forming' sequences feeling ever so slightly clichéd for the rom-com genre – granted, many scenes are often complimented by the addition of the zom in zom-rom-com, such as a car-driving sequence which comes out of nowhere and a literal make-up montage. So yeah, in a story which is a blend of Twilight and Romeo and Juliet, it's when the two actually combine that you get anything interesting.
As our warm-bodied zombie hunk protagonist, Nicholas Hoult is impressive. Sure, there's not much to stumbling about and murmuring, but with the dialogue at hand and the literal character growth he has, he does at least do his hardest in his performance as a zombie getting accustomed to these new-found feelings and emotions. The same of course can't be said for Palmer – mainly because she isn't playing a dead person – as she often goes through a repetitive rhythm of "what are you?" and "You're something new" until she needs to say something new, and it's obvious that her heart wasn't in to it. Corddry is at least partially entertaining, but has very little to add aside from being an additional zombie for we the audience to like, with the same being said for human counterpart Analeigh Tipton. Dave Franco plays a small but pivotal role consisting mainly of flashbacks, but sadly could have been played by anyone; Cory Hardrict as Kevin the human is...well, we don't exactly need to talk about Kevin. He's barely present enough to warrant a comment. And of course, there's Malkovich as your typical prejudiced father who'll learn the error of his ways by the very end. Very basic, but he does the job to a satisfactory degree.
So that's all there really is to Warm Bodies. It's no Shaun of the Dead in terms of the zom-rom-com genre, but at least it's one of the more watchable knock-offs of the Twilight formula. Rarely funny and visuals being an insignificant detail in the production notes and the filmography of Jonathan Levine. Kudos to Hoult and the make-up team, but aside from that, it's quite simply a watchable and occasionally likable zombie film for young girls who crave a relationship with a zombie. Although please don't tell anyone that because you'll end up going to the authorities. 4/10.
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