[7]

In the great zombie apocalypse, a dead teenager (Nicholas Hoult) falls in love with a human survivalist (Teresa Palmer). Their affection for each other sparks enlightenment among the rest of the freshly dead, while the girl’s militaristic father (John Malkovich) and the long-dead ‘bonies’ push toward annihilation. Warm Bodies messes with zombie lore and strains my suspension of disbelief on numerous occasions, but by the end, its goofy good nature wins me over. It helps tremendously that Nicholas Hoult (A Single Man, X-Men: First Class) is both adorable and a fine actor. I also dug the cool soundtrack, which includes a number of shiny ’80s tunes.

You have to accept right away that many of the zombies aren’t really zombies — they still remember things, make homes for themselves, collect things, and have feelings. The film rests on this conceit, and young director Jonathan Levine (50/50) does about as good as I can imagine with it. Zombihood is depicted as a gradation, with the skeletal ‘bonies’ being the extreme, least human end, while all the less-decomposed zombies still have hope for redemption. I wish that were the only conceit, but there are a few other narrative leaps that bugged me — especially the fact that Hoult eats Palmer’s boyfriend’s brains, and that this fact is pretty much glossed over for the rest of the movie. Her character is weakened by the insinuation that she’d be so quick to forget her dead boyfriend and fall so quickly in love with a new one… dead or not. The way in which the zombies start turning human again is also a bit cheezy (harkening the end of Ghostbusters 2).

If you can get past the leaps and invest in Hoult’s character and performance, Warm Bodies is sweet enough to put you in a forgiving mood.