Warm Bodies (2013) or, Zombie Date Night

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A romantic, tongue-in-cheek-funny, well-designed poster for Jonathan Levine's Warm Bodies

 

In a post-apocalyptic future, the daughter of a prominent zombie exterminator gets her boyfriend eaten by a young male zombie, who with the guy's brain in his system assumes his warm memories and thereby falls in love with the girl while slowly improving himself as a zombie.

Warm Bodies is a film mostly for teenagers who have seen other YA [young adult] adaptations of the preceding years, in particular Twilight (2008) and its sequels, which the film nearly spoofs. But only nearly, because it also insists on being a romance and an action-horror in its own right. - That is a far reach for any film, and Warm Bodies seems to attempt to overcome this by using lots of different popular music to mark its many shifts in tone.

If you are over twenty, it may be difficult for you to get really involved with the ludicrous plot of teenage necrophilia that is basically at play here. On the plus side, both Teresa Palmer (Hacksaw Ridge (2016)) and Nicholas Hoult (Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)), - who is the cutest-looking zombie I can remember ever seeing, - are good, and John Malkovich (Drunkboat (2010)) is also funny as an obsessive zombie-hater. Warm Bodies is a quirky YA-film. It is written and directed by Jonathan Levine (50/50 (2011)), based on the same-titled 2010 novel by Isaac Marion.

Related review:

Jonathan Levine: 50/50 (2011) or, Dude's Got the Big C

Watch the first 4 minutes of the film here

Cost: 35 mil. $

Box office: 116.9 mil. $

= Box office success

[Warm Bodies premiered January 16 (Rome) and runs 97 minutes. Filming took place in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, beginning September 2011. The film opened #1 to a 20.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for a total of 4 weeks and grossed 66.3 mil. $ (56.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were South Korea with 7.4 mil. $ (6.3 %) and Russia with 5.9 mil. $ (5 %). Warm Bodies is certified fresh at 80 % with a 6.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Warm Bodies?

50/50 (2011) or, Dude's Got the Big C

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A poster for Jonathan Levine's 50/50, featuring a still from the film's one-take head-shaving scene

A young man is diagnosed with spinal cancer and prepares to die. The chemo is tough, the girlfriend cheats, his best friend is infantile, his mother fusses over him, and his shrink is an amateur. But a sweet amateur. - Will he kick it?

After it's over, 50/50 feels like it should have been something more, but it does accomplish a realistic feel. Screenwriter Will Reiser (Brooklyn Castle (announced)) wrote it based on personal experiences with the subject matter, himself having survived cancer. Ironically, Seth Rogen (Neighbors (2014)), who plays the Reiser-based protagonist's best friend, (who was also Rogen in Reiser's own real-life experience), just works better in more straight comedies, I find, but both Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Manic (2001)) and Angelica Huston (Seraphim Falls (2006)) as the fussy mother are good here.
But 50/50 does become touching, and it has an especially fine hospital scene. Considering its pedigree, it is a hard little movie directed by Jonathan Levine (The Night Before (2015)).

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 8 mil. $
Box office: 41.1 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 5.13 times the cost)
[50/50 premiered 12 September (Toronto International Film Festival, Ontario) and runs 100 minutes. James McAvoy was supposed to play the protagonist but bowed out due to his becoming a father at the time of shooting. Filming took place in Washington and British Columbia, Canada from February - March 2010. The film opened #5, behind Dolphin Tale, Moneyball, The Lion King (re-release) and Courageous, to an 8.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed #5 for a second week before leaving the top 5, grossing 35 mil. $ (85.2 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 2.3 mil. $ (5.6 %) and South Korea with 0.8 mil. $ (1.9 %). The film was nominated for 2 Golden Globes. Levine returned with Warm Bodies (2013). Gordon-Levitt returned in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Rogen in For a Good Time, Call... (2012), Anna Kendrick (Elsewhere (2009)) in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011). 50/50 is certified fresh at 94 % with a 7.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of 50/50?