If you haven't seen a preview for the 2013 Jonathan Levine directed zombie-romance film, "Warm Bodies," then please don't!! My regular readers know by now that I grow extremely tired of how much of the plot the promotional trailers give away these days. It takes away so much of the fun from this film and I am so glad that I didn't see it until I had already watched "Warm Bodies" in it's entirety and only right before I began the review.
With that said, "Warm Bodies" is a super solid film, with as much originality as can be accompanied in a side-genre of film that is well known for being far from that very description. We as a society have become completely obsessed by apocalyptic events and the possibilities that follow, which 9.5 times out of 10, is zombies.
"Warm Bodies" is based around a young "corpse" played by Nicholas Hoult, (X-Men:First Class, Clash Of The Titans, The Weather Man) named "R" and his initial journey to find out more about who he was while he was alive.
The film takes a turn once R starts eating Perry's (Dave Franco) brain after a group of the corpses assembled to go out and satisfy "The New Hunger." Shortly after this turn of events, "Warm Bodies" captivatingly holds the attention of viewers for the remainder of the 98 minute film.
Every time I felt as if the production team was just about to do too much, or was on the verge of a mistake, it was quickly fixed or justified with a pretty nifty twist or excellent addition to the overall feel of the storyline. The team even went to the point of adding some much needed narrative dialogue in the script to cover just about anything that could have been considered a loose end. Hats off to the whole crew for that move!
The effects were pretty fun to watch, the music selection was top notch with the exception of one or two irritating songs that could have been replaced by something more effective. The makeup at times was too excessive and so were some of the usage of computer generated additions to personal features, but nothing that really took away from the main focus.
As for gore? Little to none and just a few frightening sequences. Which means......take your Valentine to this film with no questions asked. It's an awesome adventure for anyone and the perfect time to get itch that zombie scratch on a lovers holiday that might not have been able to be reached until now, due to the lack of a great film with this caliber.
