★★★
Dir. Jonathan Levine
(2012)
Jonathan Levine has always been an interesting young film maker a blossoming career filled with unique choices and startling left turns. Kicking off with the somewhat underrated slasher All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, the seriously underrated The Wackness and the touching, honest and controversial 50/50, he's a man of many genre's. Warm Bodies is partly a retelling of Romeo and Juliet through the eyes Nicholas Hoult's lonely zombie named "R". So, yeah, it's also a zombie film and our Juliet (or Julie) is Teresa Palmer; A freedom fighting daughter of the military leader of the only walled city which remains in a post apocalyptic nightmare. A Perfect setting for love.
Levine has fun with the tried and tired set up, inventing zombies for our zombies (or Boneys) and, in a sweet, funny and helpful voice over from Hoult, hints that it was a celebrity obsessed social networking culture and not some horrible virus which was the cause of it all. After all, the airport terminal where "R" and his groaning buddies hang out isn't that far removed from Heathrow's Terminal 2 at 5am. R's hunger soon changes from brains to cheese when he meets Julie in a stereotypical gun fight and decides to keep his new love at first sight safe from his pals. George Romero's cultural parody is rife here with Levine gleefully adding another layer of comedy in the form of a portrayal of another man with an inability to successfully communicate his feelings. Can Julie cure him of that?
It's certainly not perfect by any means; After a dazzling first half the thing gets a little out of control as the cliché creeps back in waiting in the wings to tick all the crowd pleasing boxes of, not only a zombie film, but a romantic comedy too. Hoult's acting has been patchy at best but his performanceless performance as "R" is great and although Julie isn't as fun Palmer does well and Levine delivers enough laughs and heart with Warm Bodies to make it a solid addition to the Shaun of the Dead / Zombieland's of late. With a fine indie soundtrack and a smart script from Isaac Marion's novel this is a surprising and instantly likeable little film which tries its damnedest to do something new with the genre but doesn't quite succeed in the end.
