Zombie romance film surprisingly engaging, writes Christine Powley.
Director: Jonathan Levine
Cast: Nicolas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Analeigh Tipton, Rob Corddry, Dave Franco, John Malkovich, Cory Hardrict
Rating: (M)
3 stars (out of 5)
We know we are hardly living in a time of romance, but things must be pretty bad when teenage girls are turning to the creatures of horror for romantic gestures
First we were exposed to the sweet gentle nature of vampires, now we get the romantic longings of zombies. Warm Bodies (Hoyts) revolves around R (Nicolas Hoult) and his love for Julie (Teresa Palmer) and any linkage in the audience's mind to that great teenage romance Romeo and Juliet is purely intentional.
In fact, Warm Bodies is surprisingly engaging. It takes two of my pet peeves - voice-overs and music tracks standing in for dialogue and makes them work because, after all, zombies are not the world's best talkers. R is your typical teenager.
He wanders aimlessly around thinking deep ironic thoughts that he is unable to articulate so resorts to grunting. Everything changes in his zombie world when he meets a girl (a real living girl) and saves her from the other zombies.
Loving Julie changes R; he starts to become human again. But as every teenager in love knows, the world has a way of thinking it knows better and ganging up against you.
Best thing: You need a lot of Goth-like charisma to play a zombie who is also boyfriend potential and Nicholas Hoult has it, which is strange because he was so sweet in About a Boy.
Worst thing: I am not sure horror movie fans will be that keen on seeing zombies rediscovering their humanity; it sort of ruins the point.
See it with: Some black eyeliner to match the teenage angst.
By Christine Powley.
