For a while now, I’ve had the intention of reviewing Iron Man 3, but upon reflection there can’t be a lot to say about it, other than “another Iron Man”. Instead, another film caught my eye - Warm Bodies, a film about zombies.
I was definitely dubious when I first heard about Warm Bodies, what with the absurd level of marketing the film got, for a few reasons. For one, it’s a zombie film, and zombies are possibly the most unoriginal concept in the history of filmmaking. Secondly, the film’s premise: a zombie who becomes self aware and becomes romantically involved with a human. Zombies, being characteristically animated corpses and therefore brain-dead, cannot (or should not) possess coherent thought - this goes against the very definition of zombies. Not only does the premise sound silly, but it also sounds like Twilight: Zombie Edition.
But then I remembered that films like Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead got away with the zombie cliché because it was primarily played for laughs, and subsequently, both those films were very good. And the more I heard about Warm Bodies, the more it sounded like it, too, was playing the zombie premise for laughs. So for that reason, Warm Bodies attracted my attention far more than Iron Man 3 did.
It would have worked better, of course, if the film was actually funny. Or perhaps that’s a little unfair, coming from someone whose favourite comedy film is In Bruges, which encompasses an entirely different sense of humour. It may indeed be unfair to criticise a film for having a different sense of humour to my own, given humour is subjective - in any case, I found the film was least funny when it was trying to be. What I did find funny, however, was the implications of the concept itself, and the underlying sense of self-parody present throughout the film. Watching R stumble around and attempt to interact with people, combined with his internal commentary, is quite hilarious, primarily because it’s a silly idea. I get the sense that Warm Bodies is deliberately mocking itself for being inherently silly. However, at times it is difficult to tell whether the film is being deliberately ironic; occasionally, it seems to be taking itself seriously, and at other times it appears to be engaging in self-parody. It is therefore difficult to pinpoint the original intention the filmmakers had when producing Warm Bodies.
The film could be seen as a deconstruction of the zombie film genre. As I mentioned earlier, the characteristics of the zombies in Warm Bodies go against the inherent nature of zombies, but it does so for the sake of exploring zombies as an idea. It takes apart conventions and clichés present in many zombie films and explores their many natural implications; the obvious one being whether it is possible for zombies to become conscious or not.
Zombies in films are typically used as a villain it’s morally okay to kill, because they have no shred of humanity left in them - however, Warm Bodies decides to throw that out the window by giving zombies a human perspective, and turning zombies into creatures one can empathise with. Assuming the audience is familiar with the zombie film genre, the film asks the audience, “What is it like for the zombies?”, and I found myself contemplating this question in relation to other zombie films I’ve seen. Indeed, what do the zombies think and feel in I Am Legend, or 28 Days Later? It’s the sort of film which makes you question what humanity actually means, and whether such a definition actually should mean anything. In this respect, I found Warm Bodies unexpectedly compelling. R’s narration at the start of the film is the strongest part, giving the audience an insight as to what zombies are really like, and in this case R is nothing more than a normal human with reduced motor skills and an appetite for flesh. For combining insight with ironic humour, Warm Bodies earns my respect.
Warm Bodies also serves as a parody of teen dramas, as much of the interaction between R and Julie mirror the cliché exchanges one sees in many teen romantic drama films - but with one party replaced with a zombie. It is a fairly clever juxtaposition of teen romantic dramas and zombie horror, and given the two are almost incompatible, it becomes quite funny too. Even though, as I said before, much of the comedy isn’t particularly funny when it tries to be, it is far more entertaining when it becomes clear it is a parody of other genres. Essentially, it runs two generic and overused story arcs together for stylistic dissonance, to great effect.
It is possible, however, that I’m reading far too into it, and the filmmakers had no idea what they were doing. But remember that a film is only as good as how you interpret it. The inherent subjectivity of the medium - that is, that one persons interpretation of the same film may be completely different to the next person’s, with neither more valid - is one of the reasons I like it so much. So while my interpretation might be completely inconsistent with the creators’ intentions, that doesn’t make my interpretation less valid by any standards. If Warm Bodies was just dumb fun to you, then that’s fine too. And it is dumb fun, to a certain extent, but if you consider the deeper implications of the film, there’s an underlying commentary on both zombie films and teen romance films which I think is both interesting and compelling, if nothing else.
Having said all that, Warm Bodies is fairly insubstantial, and short - just over an hour and a half long. Other than the ironic subtext, there’s not a lot else you can say about it - “zombie falls in love with human” sums it up quite well. If you opted to take it seriously, there’s no way you could say it’s good, because some of the writing is appalling. But I had fun with it, despite the unbelievably saccharine ending, and so might you.
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