Warm Bodies
201397 minutes
Rated PG-13
by Scott Mendelson
There is very little that happens plot-wise in Jonathan Levine's Warm Bodies (trailer) that you haven't seen somewhere else. But beneath the somewhat generic narrative is both a rather sad subtext and a worthwhile parable that elevates the film beyond its somewhat simplistic humor. Most importantly, the film genuinely adds a new idea to the zombie cannon, something that seems so simple that I'm surprised that someone didn't do it much earlier. In short, the film is told from the point of view of a zombie. Set in a world where something somewhere caused the vast majority of the world to turn into zombies, the film tells a seemingly simple story of how one such brain-eating creature falls in love with a random human he happens to encounter. The romance is arguably the film's weakest element, as it's basically a variation on Beauty and the Beast's Stockholm syndrome, but the story goes in some thoughtful directions nonetheless. Based on a novel by Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies takes bits and pieces from Beauty and the Beast, Wall-E, and How to Train Your Dragon to shape a film that becomes a parable for our current 'war on terror' foreign policy. But its most important idea is detailing the sheer hell of actually being a zombie.
