Yesterday, I had the great opportunity to see the newly-released movie, Warm Bodies. Starring Nicholas Hoult as R, a pensive and undeniably unique zombie during the wake of the present-day apocalypse, and Teresa Palmer as Julie, his love interest, this movie was surprisingly meaningful despite its outrageous plot line. The movie begins when R describes the current world in a hopeless yet humorous tone. We meet his “best friend,” M (Rob Corddry), who evolves into a comedic, lovable character throughout the movie, and the Bonies (think super-zombies that look like muddy skeletons). On one of the zombies’ food hunts (note: Zombies feed on humans), R and his posse come across an abandoned pharmacy. Here, Julie, her friend Nora (Analeigh Tipton), and boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco) have been sent from an enclosed human survival city created by Julie’s father Grigio (John Malkovich) to gather medicine. When the zombies detect the humans in the pharmacy, they enter as the human trio attempts to combat them. In a “love-at-first-sight” moment, R is immediately attracted to Julie before fulfilling his hunger through eating Perry. While eating Perry’s brain, we learn that R yearns to be human again, since the brain supplies the zombie that eats it with the memories of the human that R craves. Soon after, R “meets” Julie, and he essentially kidnaps her. For much of the movie, he attempts to keep her safe from the others, while she wants to escape her captivity. They develop a strange relationship, however, but knowing that a having a zombie boyfriend is absurd and possibly fatal for R, she wants to return home. She eventually does escape, and of course, R consults M in an effort to find her by infiltrating the anti-zombie, high-security city. Meanwhile, M leads the rest of the zombies into a revolution, much to the Bonies’ dismay, in an attempt to feel love and become partially human again.

While Warm Bodies was preponderantly reminiscent of the romance in Beauty and the Beast twisted with the supernatural aspect of the Twilight movies, it held a certain charm that makes it, as I said, meaningful. Now, I love a great Disney classic, so no bashing there, but Twilight was entertaining, albeit enjoyable, but just entertaining. With only minor plot differences, Warm Bodies was able to convey a better sense of urgency and true, unrequited emotion, possibly due to the much-improved acting and recent competitiveness of the genre that forces movies to become continuously more believable. Either way, it was mostly enjoyable and comedic with a feel-good ending. Jonathon Levine’s portrayal of the zombies as thoughtful characters was excellent. On a personal note, I especially enjoyed the part of the movie when “Midnight City” by M83, my hip hop song, came on. However, what great movie is completely flawless? There were some logical fatalities of the movie that may have gone unnoticed, but my analytical mind was able to recognize them. When R has his “love-at-first-sight” moment, and later when he learns about Julie through Perry’s memories, how does R happen to love her, when his heart does not function? Although R does have deeper, inner thoughts as normal humans do, in movies such as this one, the heart is symbolic of love. Another subject of my concern was a flaw in the script, when Julie attempts to guess R’s real name. All R remembers about his name was that it starts with an R, hence his name for the duration of the film. Julie experiments with different names to see if any sound familiar to R, but she eludes the name Ryan, which is a popular name for the younger generations today, guessing Richard instead. Still, I felt that by being referred to as R in the movie, his name gave him some of his charm. I also thought that the ending was too rushed and a bit chaotic, but at the conclusion of the movie I did feel satisfied. The comedy was excellent, not mindless humor but humor of clever scripting and excellent acting. Warm Bodies is a great movie to see with either your friends or special someone, but please heed the PG-13 rating; though I would not consider it horror, there are some scenes that may scare younger children and a minor bit of profanity. If you want a heart-warming experience, go see Warm Bodies, in theaters now.