If you thought the BOOK ruined the book…
You have to have just a little sympathy for whichever studio executive initially snapped up the rights to Quirk Books’ [amazon text=Pride and Prejudice and Zombies&asin=1594743347]. That guy had to have heard the buzz surrounding it, and seen its strong sales. He might have even thought it was a really clever idea. The problem with it is that once you’ve heard the title and seen the cover, it’s obvious that that’s the extent of the clever idea. Author Seth Grahame-Smith parlayed it into a much bigger film career than the poor talents trying to make his first novel into a riveting movie.
Part of the problem, besides thin source material, is the need to make this a movie for everyone. For some strange reason, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies needed to be PG-13 (because kids love zombie movies), and ends up being relatively bloodless, in many senses of the word. Writer/director Burr Steers struggles to turn this into exactly the movie that would satisfy anyone drawn in by the title, but misses that even the original joke was that it’s still [amazon text=Jane Austen’s classic novel&asin=0486284735], just with zombies.
Instead of opening with an introduction to the Bennets, Steers’ script focuses on Colonel Darcy (Sam Riley), hunting zombies in the countryside. Granted, from the title there’s no way to make the zombies a surprise, but Steers shifting to action right away actually removes the spontaneity of it. He’s made a mediocre zombie movie with a regency-era romance as the backdrop, instead of the other way around. (Though still, someone at the press screening applauded when Darcy and Lizzie married.)
There’s a heavy bit of exposition using paper puppets to explain the zombie apocalypse, but it’s unnecessary, especially as any bit of it that’s important gets repeated in ornate dialogue, or dropped outright. Instead, a brand new plot is inserted. These zombies retain their intelligence, still speak, and still plan. Some even seem to have consciences, but that idea doesn’t really get explored, just brought up and tossed away.
The cast makes the most of it, though. Lily James handles both the dialogue and the action with charm, and Riley smolders appropriately as Darcy. The other Bennet sisters have one bright spot in a training sequence, but for the most part, the movie doesn’t have time to notice that they’re not supposed to be interchangeable.
Two actors get a chance to make the film roar to life with their screen time. Matt Smith pops up as the unctuous Collins, and the real tragedy is that he doesn’t get to play the role in a good straightforward adaptation. He seems to be one of the few involved who really knows the source material. And since her character is much changed anyway, Lena Headey tears into each moment as Lady Catherine DeBurgh, reimagined as a savage zombie fighter and played with her usual cool sensuality.
But the real character moments are few and far between, quick nods before getting interrupted by random zombie attacks that supposedly build to a larger conspiracy. That, however, fizzles out, too, with the idea of a supernatural reckoning that seems more the set-up for a second film that this one, sadly, doesn’t deserve.
It has a plot, but it doesn’t have a point of view. While it may have funny moments, it’s not really funny enough, losing even the most basic joke of British society trying desperately to pretend there isn’t a zombie apocalypse going on. In the book, they’re rarely called zombies; they’re “dreadfuls” or “unmentionables,” as in, tut tut, isn’t that a shame but come along now, England must prevail. It’s satire, just as Austen’s original novel was a satire on the manners of her time.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies also isn’t violent enough, considering its subject matter. Everything is done in a tasteful manner, cutting away before impact or blood can spurt. It’s not squeamishness; it’s to preserve the PG-13, more censorship than artistry. The zombie attacks just flail away; like many action movies in the last few years, it’s hard to tell what’s actually going on amidst the swinging of swords. All that matters is that they happen, not that they happen entertainingly.
So it’s not quite one thing or the other. Not particularly good, but not horrifically terrible, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies just chugs along for 108 minutes. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a moviegoer with a bucket of popcorn is in want of something a little more… anything.
