THE NEW TWILIGHT?

MOVIE REVIEW

WARM BODIES

By:

G.P. MANALO

Starring:

Nicholas Hoult

Teresa Palmer

John Malkovhich 

ever since a sparkling Vampire and a bitchy "werewolf" got paired to an even bitchier human girl, It seems that it is a fad now to have classic monsters to be paired with teenage girls. With that kind of money Twilight gets for every movie, most studios wouldn't say no when money can talk, With Warm Bodies on the other hand; Over the past years there's been a lot of news about Warm Bodies and the initial reaction is obviously a lot of f-bombs and videos linking to various clips of people shouting "NO".  I was pretty much doing both at that time. But hearing that a good director is behind the project I was a bit optimistic about it. Now that we have the movie out in theaters... Is it the NEW TWILIGHT everyone is talking about at first?

Warm Bodies - Is based on a young-adult novel with the same name by Isaac Marion and it takes place years after the Zombie Apocalypse began, It follows a very unusual Zombie (who is meanwhile called "R") who has no memory of his past, he is different from the other zombies as he proves it to a human girl that he is attracted to named, Julie. But as he interacts with this girl further, he finds himself slowly transforming into his human self. But then complications happened between them with her father and a large group of Bonies (Decayed, Skeleton Zombies).

In other words Love is the cure... It sounds silly... But it's actually told well, well enough to get me interested.

Like I said, I wasn’t very happy to hear about Warm bodies at first, especially when I have not read the book of the movie that it is based on, I was half blind going into this movie (since they sorta’ explained the plot in the trailers) I was expecting this movie to be "shitty", to keep that in a G-Rating I had no high expectations for Warm Bodies when i read the synopsis and saw the first photos but when the trailer came out I thought that it may not be shit-fest it may be. Is it really not the shit fest i was hoping it to be at first? (Surprisingly) Not really? Is it the greatest movie? No, not really but I had to say that i actually enjoyed this movie and I actually liked it. I know it's weird for me to say it, but i actually like it, in fact i can see both a man and a woman enjoy this movie (And I was in a theater full of couples).

Right of the bat, Is it like Twilight? Not at all it is far away from having it deserve such a title Sure the way i summarized the plot made the movie sound cheesy and sound like Twilight, but they were actually self-aware of how it is like a Twilight-Ish formula, The flaw of Twilight is that it takes itself way too seriously, up to the point that it ends up as a very badly drawn out, (in a bad way) soap opera type of film. This on the other hand is self-aware of the concept that it is silly but the movie actually made it work as these characters give their charm as they ham the camera. Warm Bodies stands alone as a movie than being called a Twilight rip-off. Director, Jonathan Levine knows how to balance the seriousness and the wackness (if you are familiar with his works you may get the reference) of his movies go, like his recent work 50/50. 50/50 had a very good balance of comedy and drama; it shows in this movie as well. But it wasn't much of a depressing drama like 50/50. And also it does not look cheap like Twilight did (seriously that movie looks like it can be for TV).This movie has more depth than i was expecting it to be in the rom-com side of the movie. You should stop thinking about the fact that this is a Twilight rip-off because it’s not. 

The comparison out of the way, the movie on its own; Going back to the comedy aspect of this movie, the writing for the comedy is not as forced as I was expecting it to be. You can get good laughs out of this movie, especially in the first half of the movie. The jokes are genuine and not forced at all, the movie felt like the movie got in a different way when it comes to it being a zombie film as the film progresses. The jokes were in the movie at the right time, and I like it when comedy movies go that way.  This being a (horror-) romantic-comedy and all, I find the romance… Cute I think that’s a good description for it. The chemistry between Nicholas Hoult’s character and Teresa Palmer’s character is enjoyable and interesting (surprisingly interesting) to watch, more enjoyable and interesting than a sparkling vampire and a human bitch making out in 5 movies. I thought both actors worked really well together on-screen. I thought Rob Coddry as the Bro-Zombie was pretty funny than the rest of the cast, for the scenes he was in. But I did have very few problems with this movie it being under-developed things here and there, The Bonies felt like an obvious plot device than an actual threat in the second half and John Malkovhich is in the movie in very few scenes, for a great comedic actor like him It felt like he was very under-used, but for the scenes he was in he was still pretty good.

In the end, Warm Bodies is a very enjoyable movie. It’s a 2013-released movie where I would highly recommend you see this movie immediately, It’s a very good date movie that I’m pretty sure you and your date will enjoy together this Valentine’s day (or maybe any day in February). Director Jonathan Levine and the rest of the cast were able to deliver a well-handled film as the writer(s) and the director of the film took the genre in a different direction. I had a very good time watching this movie, It is funny,  I found myself laughing (not out loud, but it is surprising that I did laugh and chuckled at some point), the romance is cute and interesting to watch, and I also forgot to say that the soundtrack was very well put together as well.  I liked this movie very much though it still had some of its problems. Again, I would highly recommend you see this movie (not alone, because it felt weird to be alone in a movie like this).

THE GOOD:

+WELL BALANCED TONES

+GOOD PERFORMANCES

+SURPRISINGLY FUNNY

THE BAD:

-UNDER DEVELOPED THINGS HERE AND THERE

MY RATING:

WIN! - 4/5