Trama

After a highly unusual zombie saves a still-living girl from an attack, the two form a relationship that sets in motion events that might transform the entire lifeless world.

With much of the world's population now an undead horde, R is a young and oddly introspective zombie. While fighting with and feeding on a human scavenger party, R meets Julie and feels an urge to protect her. What happens next is the beginning of a strangely warm relationship that allows R to begin regaining his humanity. As this change spreads through the local undead population like a virus, Julie and R eventually have to face a larger issue when the very nature of their friendship is challenged. Caught between the paranoid human forces and the ferocious "Bonies", zombies who are a mutual threat, R and Julie must find a way to bridge the differences of each side to fight for a better world no one thought possible.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)

In a post-apocalyptic USA, the survivors live in a city surrounded by walls that separate them from the living dead. Their leader Grigio sends a group of teenagers, including his daughter Julie, her boyfriend Perry and her friend Nora, to the outside to collect food and supplies for the population. However, they are surprised by a group of zombies. Among them, R, who is a young zombie without recollections but very introspective. R eats Perry's brain and revives his memories and sensations with Julie, and he falls in love with her. R saves Julie from the other zombies and hides her in the plane where he lives. Along the days, they develop a weird relationship and become friends. When a group of zombies led by R's friend M finds Julie, R protects her. Soon the zombies including R change their emotions and are capable to dream. But the fearful Bonies are seeking out Julie and R...—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

A tormented zombie (Nicholas Hoult) experiences a profound transformation after entering into an unusual relationship with the daughter (Teresa Palmer) of a military leader charged with eradicating the walking dead. As the unlikely pair build a tenuous bridge between the living and the dead, those on both sides of the battle begin to sense that nothing in their world will ever be the same again.

When a highly unusual zombie (Hoult) rescues a girl (Palmer) from imminent death at the hands of his cohorts, their unlikely romance sets in motion a chain of events that will transform him, his fellow dead, and maybe even the whole lifeless world.

About eight years after a zombie apocalypse, R (Nicholas Hoult), a zombie who cannot recall his name but believes it began with an "R", spends his days wandering around an airport which is now filled with hordes of his fellow Undead, including his best friend M (Rob Corddry). R cannot remember anything about his past life but believes that his Hoodie indicates that he was probably unemployed. R spends time looking at the other zombies and trying to figure out what they did for a living before they turned.

R imagines that people in the past would have been able to communicate with each other and express themselves, but now the zombies barely can grunt at each other. R feels lost as his aimlessly drifts through the airport throughout the day. R lives in an abandoned airplane in one of the parking bays.

R and M achieve rudimentary communication with grunts and moans and occasional near-words. Zombies travel in packs as humans are always trying to shoot them in the head.

As a zombie, R constantly craves human flesh, especially brains, as he is able to "feel alive" through the victims' memories he experiences when he eats them. Boneys are zombies when they lose all their flesh and are so deprived that they will eat anything even barely alive. They are much worse than Zombies.

While R and a pack of zombies are out hunting for food, they encounter Julie Grigio (Teresa Palmer) and a group of her friends, who were sent out by Julie's father Colonel Grigio (John Malkovich) from a heavily fortified, walled-off human enclave in a nearby city to recover medical supplies from abandoned buildings. R sees Julie and is drawn to her and his heart beats for the first time. After being shot in the chest by Julie's boyfriend, Perry (Dave Franco), R kills him while Julie is distracted, and eats his brain, giving R his thoughts and memories, making his attraction to Julie even stronger. Through Perry's brain, R finds out that Julie and Perry were in love with each other.

He rescues Julie from the rest of the pack by wiping some zombie blood on her face, masking her scent, and takes her back to an airplane he resides in at the airport to keep her safe. Julie's friend Nora manages to escape alive. Julie is petrified to see so many zombies living inside the airport, but R guides her through with a firm hand.

Julie is initially terrified of R, and suspicious of his intentions. R can also sense that Julie is afraid of her, so he leaves her alone in the airplane and stays outside in an abandoned car. R continues to feast on Perry's brains and learns more and more about Julie. R realizes that Julie is afraid of zombies as one of Perry's closest friends converted to a zombie and then attacked Perry, prompting Julie to kill the friend by shooting him in the head.

Julie wakes up the next morning and asks R to get her some food. R says that it is not safe for Julie to venture outside and so he leaves her inside the plane and goes himself. Julie starts to trust R after he rescues her during a failed escape attempt (by again putting blood on her to mask her scent and teaching her how to walk and grunt like a zombie) and finds her some food. R insists that Julie has to stay with him for a few days until he deems it safe enough for her to leave. The two bond, listening to LP records and playing games to kill the time, causing R to slowly begin to come to life as his heart starts beating, and he is slowly able to communicate with more words. After a few days, Julie gets restless, and tries to return home, yet attracts swarms of zombies, requiring R to rescue her. After fending off a group of zombies, including M, who is confused by R's actions, R decides it is time to return her to the human enclave.

On the way, R reveals to Julie that he was the one that killed Perry, which prompts her to abandon him and return to her home alone. R begins to make his way back to the airport, heartbroken. He then sees that M and other zombies are also beginning to show signs of life, making all of them targets for the Boneys - skeletal zombies who, having lost all traces of their humanity, have shed their flesh and prey on anything with a heartbeat. R and M lead a group to the human enclave, where R sneaks inside the wall.

There, he finds Julie and meets her friend Nora (Analeigh Tipton), who is initially shocked. When R reveals that the other corpses have also been coming back to life, the three of them attempt to tell Colonel Grigio, Julie's father and leader of the survivors. Colonel Grigio refuses to believe corpses can change and threatens to kill R, stopping only when Nora pulls a gun on him. Julie and R escape to a baseball stadium where the rest of R's group is waiting but soon find themselves under attack by a horde of Boneys. While M and his gang of zombies square off against the Boneys, Julie and R run, but find themselves trapped.

Taking the only escape route, R jumps with Julie into a pool far below, shielding her from the impact. After Julie pulls R from the bottom of the pool, they kiss. Colonel Grigio arrives and shoots R in the shoulder without warning. Julie attempts to persuade him that R has changed, when she notices that he is bleeding from his wound - revealing that he has completely revived and is human once more.

The humans and zombies combine forces and kill most of the Boneys while the rest die off from starvation and the zombies slowly assimilate into human society. Now a fully alive R and Julie watching a wall surrounding the city being demolished, signifying the end of the apocalypse.