Nothing says romance quite like a zombie movie.

I kid, but ever since Twilight first came out I was wondering when the inevitable zombie love story movie would happen.

“Warm Bodies” fits in that weird grey area where after leaving that film I felt this sense of disappointment as if the movie did not do enough to justify its own existence.

In further retrospect, I realized that “Warm Bodies” does exactly what it sets out to do. It is a thinly veiled adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” if Hollywood said, “Screw it throw zombies in there to get the masses to our movie.”

The saving grace of this movie and the one factor that put me into the camp of people who enjoyed it was a solid performance by Nicholas Hoult playing R the zombie.

Who would have thought that you’d ever see that child actor from “About a Boy” grow up to become a leading actor? Hoult’s performance single-handedly carries the film and considering John Malkovich is in it says something.

“Warm Bodies” begins after the apocalypse. Though it is never fully explained what turned many members of society into zombies, the fact that they kind of brushed it under the rug intrigued me.

The movie starts with R eating the boyfriend of a young woman named Julie whom he encounters while her group is on the hunt for supplies.

What ensues is this odd and quirky kinship where R acts as Julie’s protector from not only other zombies but also a subset of the undead named Bonies who are like Zombies in that they are dead but truly have no thought processes other than to eat flesh.

Teresa Palmer’s Julie character is a welcome addition to the stable of tough women who can more than hold their own which is remarkably better considering films like Twilight that only further perpetuate the notion of the damsel in distress.

As their friendship blossoms into full-blown romance R’s zombie body slowly becomes livelier and this in turn affects those around him at the airport where he resides.

This moral quandary is further complicated because even though he is becoming more human, Julie’s father, played by Malkovich, still isn’t convinced of his turn to humanity.

Most of the praise should be rightly given to Hoult since he alone is responsible for most of the movie but many of the supporting cast gave fascinating performances as well.

If ever you wanted to see a May-June friendship then look no further than the odd pairing of Rob Corddry and Hoult having “almost conversations.” It is nice to see Dave Franco not play the dumb popular high school student.

Analeigh Tipton is the weakest spot in the cast playing Julie’s best friend who comes off completely oblivious begging the audience to ask how she even could survive the zombie apocalypse.

Jonathan Levine proves that after “The Wackness” and “50/50” he is no one trick pony and I look forward with great anticipation to his next directorial project.

Overall if you are looking for a zombie movie more in the vein of Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead you are in luck, it is a completely watchable film.