Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

The apocalypse is just three weeks away, your wife has left you and you regret most of the major decisions you’ve ever made. What do you do? Some people try to fuck everyone they can, others drink to forget. A few carry on as normal and some riot. Dodge Peterson (Steve Carell) decides he’s going to seek out his old High School sweetheart after discovering a letter from her telling him that he was the love of her life. With him he takes his kooky English neighbour Penny (Keira Knightley) who he just met with the promise that he can get her a on a plane to be with her family before the end.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a sweet indie type of movie with its heart in the right place. It features two watchable leads and a nice story but is short of laughs and far too formulaic. It was a movie that I’d hoped to see in the cinema but my girlfriend’s dislike of Carell and Knightley coupled with a short theatrical run put a stop to that. It is a film which hasn’t enriched my life and won’t stay with me long but was worth the hundred minutes of my life.

Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies is a loose retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet but with a twist. Romeo or R (Nicholas Hoult) is a zombie, living in a post apocalyptic world. He spends his days shuffling around a long abandoned airport, looking for food and grunting. One day while out searching for brains he comes across a group of young survivors and despite his condition, falls in love with one of them, a girl called Julie (Teresa Palmer). Going against his nature R saves Julie and takes her to a safe place. Something about his love for Julie triggers a reaction inside R’s heart and he slowly becomes more human but with armed militia out to kill zombies, will anyone believe him?

Warm Bodies begins with a fantastic idea. The film is mostly told from a zombie’s perspective which I found really interesting. He has an internal monologue which is deep, thoughtful and funny but outwardly is only able to produce a few groans. Unfortunately the interest soon wears off in favour of the romantic elements. While this is fine the film plays fast and loose with the zombie concept and purists will struggle to engage with a fast moving, talking, sentient zombie.