No.193 : Warm Bodies (2013)

Warm Bodies at the IMDb

Bloody zombie films - there’s none for five minutes and then another twenty appear on the horizon. They multiply like, well, zombies. The trouble with this crowded genre is that you have to position your zombie film so that it sits apart from all the rest of the zombie films and that means you have to spend time explaining your rules and zombie conditions.

‘Warm Bodies’ predictably has the world overrun by zombies but these are special zombies - they have an inner monologue! We meet up with a Zombie Nicholas Hoult (him off ‘About a Boy’) as he talks us through his day of shambling around an airport with  the rest of his horde. He laments the loss of his humanity but does have a friend in the shape of  Rob Corddry who memorably had bum wiping issues in a ‘Harold and Kumar’ film.

We also learn that our zombies are nice zombies and that there are nasty zombies out there called ‘Bonies’, who have shed all traces of humanity and become CGI instead. Meanwhile a human settlement is planning a supply run with leader John Malkovich reluctant to send his daughter Teresa Palmer along - good call John, she got into bother in recent ‘W’ outing ‘Wish You Were Here’. Of course she goes along and her group encounters that of our zombies who quickly rip the humans to bits - apart from Teresa to whom Nicholas takes a shine.

Strangely she plays along and soon the pair are holed up in an old plane and getting to know each other through records and pop culture. Initially Teresa, who is called ‘Julie’, is just playing along with our zombie who gives his name as ‘Rrrrrr’ - Romeo and Juliet - geddit? - but soon she sees some spark of humanity in his zombified face.

The two soon have a rare old time driving cars and learning to talk, but their friendship hasn’t escaped the attention of the Bonies who, quite correctly, feel humans are there to be eaten, not socialised with. The pair are eventually split up and Julie returns to the compound but, not to be denied, Rrrrrr rounds up his pals and heads to the human camp - with the Bonies in hot pursuit. Will true love prevail and may this signal an end to human/zombie hostilities?

This was an enjoyable film but it wasn’t distinctive enough to set it apart from the rest of this cluttered genre. Fair enough it has some original ideas such as the slow journey back to humanity and the Bonies but for the most part the clichés were clear and present. Some of the gags such as the driving sequence and Julie overacting as she pretended to be a zombie offered small smiles but nothing more. Given they were going for the romantic angle the kills were toned down with only the Bonies offering any real menace.

In its favour it was a good looking production with a strong cast. I’m just not sure I want my zombies rehabilitated however, and soon as the die was cast I knew where the film was ending up. The film had a lot to like, but like its zombies it was barely showing a pulse in many places and exhibited more than a little decay around the script and plot.

Best Bit  : Bonies showdown.   W Rating 15/23

No.97 : Wah-Wah (2005)

Wah-Wah at the IMDb

Richard E. Grant writes and directs this film, partly based on his own life, about a young boy growing up in 1960s colonial Swaziland. The subject matter may sound as dry as the Serengeti and although it’s no ‘White Mischief’ it is still an enjoyable film with some decent performances.

The film opens with our young hero, Ralph, seemingly asleep on the back seat of a car but he is actually awake and witnessing his mother getting it on with a neighbour. Infidelity is seemingly a way of life in the colonies with heavy drinking filling up the rest of the day. Ralph’s Dad, played by Gabriel Byrne, is a career army man now charged with arranging schools, a task that sees him away from home a lot, a situation that doesn’t help his chronic alcoholism.



His Mum, played by Miranda Richardson has grown tired of the life and when Dad takes on a new commission she decides to leave the family for her lover leaving the boy with only a lip stick smeared glass to remember her by. Dad finds solace in the arms of local busybody Julie Walters and finding his son something of a handful sends him off to boarding school. He returns a few years later, now played by the kid out of ‘About a Boy’ to find his Dad has married feisty American Emily Watson who upsets the stuffy social balance of the community.

Watson’s ballsy and brash character inspires the boy to come out of his shell and rebel against the ‘wah-wah’ double talk of their ‘superiors. He gets a part in a local production of ‘Camelot’ and despite some rebellion involving ‘A Clockwork Orange’ things look good for opening night, especially as Princess Margaret is coming. With the show on track, only Dad’s nagging head ache can put a spanner in the works and thwart a potential happy ending.

I quite enjoyed this film which beats a similar path as ‘White Mischief in showing that Brits behaving bad abroad is nothing new. It does however lack the intensity of that film as well as the violence and nudity. As a memoir I’m sure it’s pretty interesting for Grant and his family but for an outsider looking in, not an awful lot happens.

Nicholas Hoult does well as the 14 year old Ralph although playing an awkward teenager with a love for drama presumably wasn’t much of a stretch. His parents were less good with Byrne especially unconvincing as the drunk gun toting father. Richardson is OK as the Mum but I never though she was as bad as the script seemed to want to suggest. Further down the line you get most of the cast from ‘Acorn Antiques’ with Julie Walters and Celia Imrie doing their Mrs Overall and Toffee nosed snob lady respectively. Watson was a bit jarring as the free spirited American and her casting didn’t seem believable against the stuffy colonial officer Byrne.

The predictable scenes of rebelling against the establishment were clear and present and while being a lot of fun for the participants, came across to this viewer as a bit ill mannered and rude. As a bio-pic the film would have been better if Grant has used his experiences wholesale because once you go down the ‘inspired by’ route you start wondering if all the interesting stuff is made up and the dull stuff real.

It’s not a particularly bad film but as a rites of passage piece it doesn’t really inspire, and towards the end I couldn’t care less if a rhino charged through the lot of them. Now that would have liven things up a bit!

Best Bit : Ducking into ‘A Clockwork Orange’

‘W’ Score 14/23