3 Short Paragraphs: Warm Bodies

2013, Jonathan Levine (50/50) -- download

I don't understand the need to do the "alternate" zombie movie. Sure, I get the idea that they are pretty much played out as a genre monster, despite there not being a large number of actually reputable movies. But with The Walking Dead continuing to do well, there are shiny suited execs out there demanding scripts of a different sort, zomething that will keep the audiences coming in. So, why not "zombie love story" ? Umm, perhaps because it is necrophilia??!?!? Whatever; take some pretty young people, one dead, one not, and see where it can go.

Don't get me wrong, this is a fun little movie. I like the fact that Nicholas Hoult is the kid trapped inside the dead body -- yes, dead; these guys are grey skinned, no-beating-heart walking corpses that, for some reason or another, are not rotting away. Most of the time they wander around more like people with a bad hangover, going slowly about the lives they once had, vague thoughts going on in their heads about what they once were and what they are now. Yep, we have the narrator from somewhere deep in the zombie brain. Speaking of brains, when humans come near the zombies, their noses start a'twitching and they NEED TO EAT. If they eat brains, they get euphoric from the memories of the person they ate. Some nice world building, if a bit silly. The story gets going when Nick eats the boyfriend's brain and gets a lil dead guy crush on the cute girl, all drawn from the memories of a sweet romance.

Trapped inside a wall around The City, which happens to be Montreal to anyone with a sense of skylines, the humans are living out their last days. Not only are there slow shambling walking corpses but there are the Bonies, further decayed, maddened creatures without any semblance of what they once were. How they are faster, tougher and meaner after having eaten most of their own flesh and muscle is beyond me. But that is zombie movie science, along with the Love Gets the Heart Beating Again premise of the whole movie. So, what? The heart beats again which would push decayed sludgy blood into an animated corpse -- one would think whatever forces kept the guy from decaying would suddenly kick in and he would slip into a coma and quick death. But that wouldn't make for much of a (not icky-kinky) love story would it? No, instead they are "cured" by love and everything gets better as the RomCom Virus spreads from zombie to zombie.