Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is the new movie based on the book based on that other book, you know the one (hint: Sense and Sensibility – har!). Before I talk about what I thought of the movie, I want to stress the hideous and outright lie the current American trailer for the movie is. That trailer plays the movie as a pure horror action movie set in the 19th century and only admits the title at the very end (and the voice over narration is full of stuff not in the movie – no mention of the black death, for instance). The British trailer plays up the tie-in to Pride and Prejudice and is much more honest. Don’t be fooled – this is Pride and Prejudice with zombies and not a pure action or horror flick.
For those not aware, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the novel, was a retelling of the Jane Austin novel only with zombies sprinkled in. For example, in the elevated language of Austin, the book tells how Elizabeth tromps through the mud to reach her sick sister (who was caught in the rain only after a zombie spooked her horse) and she incidentally notes slaying some zombies on the way. The tone never changes and that was the one joke variation on the prose. I never finished the book – I got the joke and it was cute and moved on.
The film is very much the same – it looks and is acted like a upper class British tale of aristocracy and manners. The dialog is often right from the book… only adding references to shaolin martial arts (the upper classes train in Japan, everyone else in China). An argument between Elizabeth and Darcy is told with Elizabeth attacking Darcy with a fireplace poker or someone explains a women should be graced with the womanly skills of conversation, dance, piano, and the martial arts. Yes, there are zombies and they inform much of the story in a fairly clever way that follows most of – but not all – of the original novel. It’s cute. It’s a kind of one joke movie as the novel was a one joke book.
Now, they actually do a pretty good job of retelling a version of Pride and Prejudice. The actors are all playing it very straight and acting it quite well. Lilly Allen (who had previously played Cinderella) is particularly good as Elizabeth. Matt Smith of Dr. Who fame plays the ridiculous pastor and he kills every scene. Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister from Game of Thrones) and Lena Heady (Cersie Lannister from Game of Thrones) also co-star. It’s a good cast, well acted.
Less impressive are the zombies and the minimal visual FX… they are kind of shoddy looking and the visual FX look pretty budget conscious (happily, they are kept to a minimum). Unfortunately, this silly premise of a movie is rated PG-13 and, while a hard PG-13, still feels like they were constantly pulling their punches on gore. It would make more sense to me if this movie was a stuffy period piece intercut with ridiculous levels of violence… but they are held in check by a silly PG-13. When The Walking Dead on basic cable would be a hard R at the theater and I can see that without leaving my house, it kind of feels like the movie rating system is becoming increasingly broken and it hurt this film.
Unfortunately, the zombies and their MPAA rating aren’t the real problem with the movie. There are two real problems. The first is that the lying liar of a trailer is going to pull in people who aren’t expecting a very talky retelling of Pride and Prejudice and are going to be bored. I was very curious which way the movie would go and was personally pleased they followed the structure of the book and kept so much the original novel in-tact. That said, the main problem with the movie is that there’s probably not enough zombie action in it (for a movie called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and eventually the movie runs out of steam and gets really tedious… ironically, this happens when it stops being so much a retelling of Jane Austen and becomes a zombie war movie.
So, yeah, that’s a lot of words for a February movie called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. What can I say – I was inspired more by the historical context and film marketing than I was about the movie itself. It’s not a terrible movie but your opinion may actually be based on how much you remember about Pride and Prejudice and how much you’ll enjoy the twists to add the zombies. I’m not 100% sure the zombie fans and the Jane Austen fans all fall within the same Ven diagram… but for those that do, it’s probably going to be a more enjoyable film. Stuffy Austen fans or rabid zombie fans will probably just be perplexed and either bored or offended (but this assumes a stuffy Austen fan would even go see the flick based on the marketing).
Score: 69