Lukewarm Bodies

It's a funny thing to see the familiar sights of your own city on the screen. Warm Bodies was shot in Montréal (and our old white elephant of an international airport terminal that didn't stand the test of time, far off in the north), but things were rearranged for the sake of the plot…er…the look of the movie.

Am I suggesting there was no plot? Surely not! It was a classic "girl and friends go outside the protective wall looking for medications for the besieged city, get attacked by zombies, girl is saved by zombie boy, love brings him (and a cast of thousands) back to life and into an alliance with the people who used to aim for their heads" story. Not a classic? Well, maybe if I expressed it as irredeemable boy brought back to redemption by his attraction to the girl. Yes, that works.

Or, as they say in the movie, he is exhumed by his love of her, and thereby all of humanity is exhumed. The unfortunate misuse of the word is explained by the inevitable loss of vocabulary when one dies.

There are several of those cute moments in the movie, including the scene where the saved (or kidnapped) girl finds a Zombie DVD and holds it up to him to compare, and plenty of other instances that show how easy it is to fool zombies with a little decaying body fluid smeared on one's face and a jerky walk – but don't exaggerate this last thing!

Back to the setting. Olympic Stadium transported to the centre of downtown, running down a corridor in one familiar place and that leading to another familiar building that is in fact quite far away and not attached by a corridor. When the city is familiar, you probably waste a bit of time trying to identify what is being shown in your own context, rather than in the context of the film.

I also can't believe that I missed seeing my friend's daughter in a fleeting glimpse of her "extra" role, but my friend has very sharp eyes where her children are concerned and saw it clearly. I'm going to have to watch this again, at least in part, after it comes out in extra-cinematic form.

Best scares are reserved for the "bonies" – zombies who are apparently irretrievably decayed and surprisingly quick on their feet. In retrospect, they were a bit crude as monsters go, but they gave me a good fright anyway.

This one can wait until you don't have to pay cinema prices to see it. When my friend's daughter plays a credited role in a movie, I will make you go see it in the cinema!