By Olivia Lang ’15 | Feature Editor

As yet another movie joining in on the post-apocalyptical zombie fad, Director Jonathan Levine’s “Warm Bodies” offers a new outlook on the seemingly overused theme.

Anyone who has seen anything that relates to zombies knows that zombies have no emotions. They are dead and always will be dead. But this film, based on Isaac Marion’s novel, adds a human component to an otherwise dead being.

The movie follows the thoughts and feelings of the main character, a zombie who goes by R (Nicholas Hoult), as he falls in love with a human named Julie (Teresa Palmer). A voiceover is used to convey all of R’s emotions, because the limits of his oral capabilities start and stop at grunting and one-word answers. While voiceovers are more often than not symptoms of poorly crafted writing, it is used well in “Warm Bodies” to convey what would otherwise be impossible.

R’s comedic voiceover, coupled with a grunt here and there is the extent of the dialogue for roughly the first third of the motion picture. While the reason for the lack of dialogue is understood, it results in viewers becoming bored in the absence of conversations to sink their teeth into.

To R’s misfortune, Julie was raised under the beliefs that all zombies were entirely incapable of feeling emotions. Naturally, the relationship starts off a little bumpy; and by “relationship,” I mean “hostage situation.” The only chance R saw to make Julie love him was to keep her prisoner in the cluttered 747 airplane he called home.

The concept of forbidden love throughout the film is a head nod to Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Rather than the Montague-Capulet feud, a full-fledged war exists between the living dead and the living alive. The name R is thought to be short for Romeo, and Julie is simply a modernization of Juliet.

Rather than follow the trend of making the zombies the obvious antagonists, the film is molded in a way that has the viewers unexpectedly sympathize with the living dead.

For some, the fear of gore and violence may keep them from seeing “Warm Bodies.” But strikingly enough, the gore is kept to a minimum, significantly less than “The Walking Dead,” which is shown on basic cable.

“Warm Bodies” succeeds by not taking itself too seriously. It serves as a lighthearted romantic comedy and makes no effort to be anything more. For this reason, it is a quirky little novelty film at the movie theater.

Even though the movie is not the “must see movie of the century,” it is exactly the rom-com that many are in the market to watch. It is no “Django” or “Les Mis;” the viewer does not leave the theater feeling any smarter or more cultured. But for those wishing to kick their feet up and watch 98 minutes of a clever comedy, the movie earns a solid B+.