Point-by-Point: Warm Bodies 9/10

The Good:
Warm Bodies has a silly plot on paper, but somehow it works perfectly on film. The panache with which the story is approached brings just the right balance of sweetness and snark to this riff on Romeo and Juliet and all involved are in on the joke.

This is one of those rare movies where I genuinely liked all the characters -- even the side-roles are well-drawn and sympathetic. Most importantly, there is no crude, slapstick sidekick character; I hate that trope with a passion! Nicholas Hoult is pretty much adorable no matter what, but his slightly-cockeyed stare works excellently here (he has truly mastered the smize).

Smize!

The voice-over monologue is also one of the best I've encountered in a long time. It's a perfect balance of exposition (which, when your character isn't all that verbose, is a good thing) and self-aware sarcasm. The intelligence of R's inner thoughts also helps steer the movie away from coming off as super-creepy kidnapping/Stockholm Syndrome fantasy (which is very much could have become, in clumsier hand).

Bonus points for the soundtrack and the way it's utilized, as well. Many of the songs are played in-movie/in context (record players, iPods, etc) and this creates a great foundation for the action. As the characters experience the music, you experience them. It's fun.

The Bad:
Let's be honest: you probably shouldn't apply logic too strenuously to this movie. At all. Just... don't.

While we do get a fair bit of backstory on the characters, the backstory on the history of how this came to be is left entirely vague. This makes the ending a little more uncertain than I feel comfortable with: what if whatever caused this in the first place comes back?

The Ugly:
This is a personal thing (hey, this is my space!), but it freaked me out that R's speech, typifying him as a zombie, is almost entirely composed of stuttering management techniques. I realize it's something that I am far more attuned to than the average, fluent bear, but it was admittedly rather disconcerting to hear how I'm theoretically "supposed to" sound being used to indicate being a mindless corpse. Excellent ego-boost right there.

I'm trying to find a Youtube clip demonstrating what I'm referring to, but unfortunately, I can't find one. Plenty that include voice-overs, but none that show R's zombie-verbal capacities. Dang it!

Points I Pondered:

• I guess I'd never really thought about it before, but I guess it makes sense that as a zombie you wouldn't need to sleep (sleep being a way for a body to heal and restore itself from the wear-and-tear of life). I never realized before that you don't ever see sleeping zombies in any movies, but you really don't. Nobody ever sneaks up on a nest of napping undead!
• It's kind of nice to see that Annaleigh Tipton continues to get roles. Reality TV stars (well, if you count getting third on America's Next Top Model "being a star") can make good! 
• How well do brains keep, if you don't refrigerate them?