Zombies With a Little Heart and Lots of Brain
Here we go again with the zombies. I know, I know. It's just what I do.
Here be SPOILERS if you care about such things.
Went and saw Warm Bodies this afternoon. It was really quite good! I saw the trailer about a month and a half ago and thought it looked weird. I did some research and found it was based on a book. So I found the book and read it cover to cover. It was a really strange book. The pacing was a little slow at times. The narrative was simple for the most part but had some complicated subplots that never really got resolved. Here's the gist: The zombie apocalypse is long over and the humans are trying to regain their feet while holed up in an old sports complex/stadium. The zombies have hives everywhere that are all but run by what they call "bonies". The bonies are what zombies turn into after a long time of being a zombie and it is implied that the whole zombie plague was of alien origin. The bonies are hyper-intelligent and form a sort of twisted religion of which they are the priests. The narrator is a zombie simply known as R who has more cognitive functions intact than most of his undead cohort. Long story short, R finds and basically kidnaps a young woman named Julie after killing her boyfriend and eating his brain. R falls in love with Julie and swears to protect her. Eventually, she goes back to the stadium and he follows. Come to find out, the only cure the zombies need to turn back into humans is LOVE! Yes, love. Love cures the plague. And everyone LIVES happily ever after.
The book d some nice recurring themes that I quite enjoyed. One of them was R's love of old music. Music is one of the things that is brightest in R's dead brain. He particularly likes Frank Sinatra and the Beatles and lyrics from their songs are instrumental in how R learns too communicate with Julie. Another theme is names. R seems obsessed with names. He believes that be learning a person's (or zombie's name) would make them, and himself by extensions, feel more alive.
Now I knew that the movie wouldn't be a direct interpretation of the book but I was hopeful that they would leave some of this magic in it. I was delightfully surprised. They did take out a few things, like the bonies' weird cult religion, which I think was just fine. And the changed the music up. Instead of John Lennon and Ol' Blue Eyes serenading R and Julie, the soundtrack was like a bad 80's nightmare scene. This change I thought was the most unfortunate. They did leave in the names thing. Overall, I thought they did a great job with it.
One scene in particular, however, made the entire story click for me. R has broken into the human city and tracks down Julie's house. He sees her sitting alone on a balcony above the street and BAM! Holy crap! This whole thing is a zombie re-telling of freaking Romeo and Juliet! Julie? R? As in Romeo? R's best zombie friend is called M. You know, like Mercutio! And BOTH of my favorite themes make complete sense in the context!. First of all, R being a music nerd is an allusion to the poetic writing style of Shakespeare's masterwork. And the names? "What is in a name? Would a rose by any other name not smell as sweet?" R is obsessed with names because he is a Montague and his fair love is a Capulet.
Looking back, it is pretty thinly veiled but I seriously did NOT pick up on it till the movie's balcony scene. So I'm here to say, well done, Isaac Marion, for revitalizing two genres at once with a fresh take on the zombie story AND a fresh re-imagining of a classic story.
Here be SPOILERS if you care about such things.
Went and saw Warm Bodies this afternoon. It was really quite good! I saw the trailer about a month and a half ago and thought it looked weird. I did some research and found it was based on a book. So I found the book and read it cover to cover. It was a really strange book. The pacing was a little slow at times. The narrative was simple for the most part but had some complicated subplots that never really got resolved. Here's the gist: The zombie apocalypse is long over and the humans are trying to regain their feet while holed up in an old sports complex/stadium. The zombies have hives everywhere that are all but run by what they call "bonies". The bonies are what zombies turn into after a long time of being a zombie and it is implied that the whole zombie plague was of alien origin. The bonies are hyper-intelligent and form a sort of twisted religion of which they are the priests. The narrator is a zombie simply known as R who has more cognitive functions intact than most of his undead cohort. Long story short, R finds and basically kidnaps a young woman named Julie after killing her boyfriend and eating his brain. R falls in love with Julie and swears to protect her. Eventually, she goes back to the stadium and he follows. Come to find out, the only cure the zombies need to turn back into humans is LOVE! Yes, love. Love cures the plague. And everyone LIVES happily ever after.
The book d some nice recurring themes that I quite enjoyed. One of them was R's love of old music. Music is one of the things that is brightest in R's dead brain. He particularly likes Frank Sinatra and the Beatles and lyrics from their songs are instrumental in how R learns too communicate with Julie. Another theme is names. R seems obsessed with names. He believes that be learning a person's (or zombie's name) would make them, and himself by extensions, feel more alive.
Now I knew that the movie wouldn't be a direct interpretation of the book but I was hopeful that they would leave some of this magic in it. I was delightfully surprised. They did take out a few things, like the bonies' weird cult religion, which I think was just fine. And the changed the music up. Instead of John Lennon and Ol' Blue Eyes serenading R and Julie, the soundtrack was like a bad 80's nightmare scene. This change I thought was the most unfortunate. They did leave in the names thing. Overall, I thought they did a great job with it.
One scene in particular, however, made the entire story click for me. R has broken into the human city and tracks down Julie's house. He sees her sitting alone on a balcony above the street and BAM! Holy crap! This whole thing is a zombie re-telling of freaking Romeo and Juliet! Julie? R? As in Romeo? R's best zombie friend is called M. You know, like Mercutio! And BOTH of my favorite themes make complete sense in the context!. First of all, R being a music nerd is an allusion to the poetic writing style of Shakespeare's masterwork. And the names? "What is in a name? Would a rose by any other name not smell as sweet?" R is obsessed with names because he is a Montague and his fair love is a Capulet.
Looking back, it is pretty thinly veiled but I seriously did NOT pick up on it till the movie's balcony scene. So I'm here to say, well done, Isaac Marion, for revitalizing two genres at once with a fresh take on the zombie story AND a fresh re-imagining of a classic story.
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