If Romeo & Juliet had met during the zombie apocalypse, the result would be Jonathan Levine's newest film Warm Bodies.
Warm Bodies tells the story of R, a zombie who realizes he may not be as dead as he thought after he starts falling for the girl who is hunting him down. His and Julie's love affair mimics the classic Shakespeare tale, but also could be what Twilight would have been had it focused on zombies and purposely played off its cheesiness.
The script is definitely what makes the movie so good. Levine takes some of the classic zombie rules, but also adds his own to create more depth to the undead side of things. A new addition is that zombies eat human brains because they can absorb all of the human's memories. Also, since zombies do not really possess the capability to form sentences, for a lot of the film R's (played by Nicholas Hoult) thoughts are heard in voice over as a way for him to relate to the audience in something other than grunts. The whole film is silly, but somehow manages to pull off being charming and smart as well.
The scenery may be nothing special, the zombies mainly stay in a deserted airport for the entirety of the film, but the makeup and special effects make up for it. Many of the zombies have the classic bloody disfigurations, but they also all are scarred facially and you can see the blue tint of their veins through their pale skin. These zombies fight against skeleton villains called "bonies", who may quite possibly be the stuff that nightmares are made of. Summit outdid themselves with the graphics of the demonic creatures. They give that little something extra to the movie that makes it wonderful.
Another thing that makes this movie special is the exceptional soundtrack. Every song fit perfectly. It was refreshing to not have a film soundtrack full of current radio hits. They also used quirky jabs at the film itself with the song choices, like when Julie and R listen to "Hungry Heart" on R's record player.
What truly makes Warm Bodies stand out among all the current zombie films and television shows is that this is not just a story of the living hunting the undead. This story gives new life to how the zombies function on a daily basis and how they are perceived as being incapable of doing so much when they actually have a lot of offer. The writing is clever and although the romance may be on the corny side, the film is worth watching for everything else it has to offer.
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