User blog:Porterfield/Warm Bodies - Review Roundup

Warm Bodies is the story of a zombie ("R", played by Nicholas Hoult) who falls in love with a human ("Julie", played by Teresa Palmer). The cast also includes the great John Malkovich, the hilarious Rob Corddry, and the unproven Dave Franco, younger brother of James. This being a zombie love story/comedy, the zom-rom-com references are flowing with much more volume than the positive reviews for this film, although the most famous critic on the list, Richard Roeper, has given "Warm Bodies" its highest score of 3.5 out of 4!

Having read all of these reviews and digested their overwhelming disappointment in the unfulfilled potential of this film's concept, I think it's safe to say that anyone going into this film as a skeptic will be pleasantly surprised, while anyone super-excited to see it will be a bit disappointed. The exceptions are teenage girls (who should love it) and zombie nerds (who will probably hate it, and complain about the genre-breaking zombie traits that "Warm Bodies" has so originally created). As a zombie fan myself, I personally love it when storytellers create new rules for "the game" (and that goes for vampires, werewolves, etc.).

Vampire love, however, is played out, so the concept of "Warm Bodies" is refreshing. It's not as good as "Sean of the Dead" or Zombieland, but it's a step the right direction (and that direction is originality).

Check out the reviews below and provide your own at the bottom!

Stephen Witty - Newark Star-Ledger
Score: 3 out of 4

Excerpt: But director Jonathan Levine (who last did the equally off-center "50/50") compensates by bringing welcome humor and offbeat touches to the material, as well as an inventive use of locations and a nice visual sense. And he gets good performances from his actors.

Richard Roeper - Chicago Sun-Times
Score: 3.5 out of 4

Excerpt: I kinda love this movie. "Warm Bodies" is a well-paced, nicely directed, post-apocalyptic love story with a terrific sense of humor and the, um, guts to be unabashedly romantic and unapologetically optimistic.

Mick LaSalle - SF Chronicle
Score: 2 out of 4

Excerpt: Yet even if the material is mediocre, at least it's fully realized. Nicholas Hoult, as the zombie boy named R, is often very funny, stumbling and grunting and trying to do his best. R explains his feelings in the voiceover narration, so the audience is always aware of the distance between his social aspirations and his abilities.

Liam Lacey - Globe and Mail
Score: 2.5 out of 4

Excerpt: Warm Bodies is for audiences who prefer stories about mending hearts to munching brains, and ideally, for girls who aren’t quite sure yet if they want a slightly scary boyfriend, or a living doll they can dress up.

Betsy Sharkey - LA Times
Score: 3.5 out of 5

Excerpt: "Warm Bodies" takes off in other equally interesting directions. What Levine's films have in common is a kind of decency and dignity the characters are given without devolving into mush. While there are deeper ideas being toyed with — what makes life worth living, for one — ultimately "Warm Bodies" is content to figure out what a girl wants

===Scott Bowles - USA Today=== Score: 2 out of 4

Excerpt: Chances are, kids aren't going to care about plot holes. They want to see the girl fall for the rebel boy on the wrong side of the heartbeat. Still, if you seek logic in your movies, this one is, in nearly every respect, a head-scratcher.

Manohla Dargis - NY Times
Score: 3 out of 5

Excerpt: If the movie surmounts its genericism, it’s largely because of the actors and a love in which the monstrous has been made literal, and violent delights don’t necessarily lead to violent ends.

Colin Cover - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Score: 2 out of 4

Excerpt: While Malkovich approaches his silly role with Method solemnity, Hoult and Corddry get the good-natured goofiness of the piece. Teresa Palmer gives Julie an ingénue’s softness and a persuasive way with a machete. As her dubious, funny best friend, Analeigh Tipton gives Palmer a real tug-of-war for possession of their shared scenes. “Warm Bodies” is surely the zombie love story of the season.

Kyle Smith - New York Post
Score: 2 out of 4

Excerpt: As in “Silver Linings Playbook,” the plot is basically about how to take an outcast with a history of violence, poor social skills and a bad wardrobe and turn him into a fully realized human being with emotions and dreams and conversation — in other words, turn him into a girl.

Michael O'Sullivan - Washington Post
Score: 1.5 out of 4

Excerpt: But for the most part, the movie, like its undead protagonist, doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself, or how to take advantage of the story’s quirky potential. Instead, it relies on stale rom-com tropes. There’s even a falling-in-love montage, in which R and Julie entertain each other, wackily of course, by trying on different pairs of sunglasses. Wait a minute, what?

Wikian Reviews
What did you think of Warm Bodies? Loved it! Thought it was okay. Hated it! I would never watch that.

Post your reviews in the comments section below!