PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (2016) **
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is exactly what you think it is. It’s an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, with zombies in the mix. I just wish the filmmakers attacked the project with a little bit more flair as the whole thing feels a bit too proper to be good fun.
The film has its moments to be sure. However, they are more clever than laugh-out-loud funny. I liked the scenes of women being fitted into girdles for costume balls and being forced to make room for their swords underneath their bodices. It’s also amusing how the class snobbery works. The upper class women look down on the heroic Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James) because she got her zombie-killing training in China. (All the best ladies train in Japan, don’t you know?)
I just wish the zombie-killing sprees were fun. They lack blood and guts, and are over much too quickly before you can fully appreciate them. Director Burr Steers delivers on the atmosphere as the candlelit ballrooms are quite creepy. It’s just a shame he never really lets loose.
The two leads are engaging enough. Sam Riley is a lot of fun as the stubborn Darcy, who is in this version, a revered zombie slayer. He has a lot of chemistry with James and their bickering is rather fun to watch. In fact, the best scene of the movie doesn’t even have any zombies in it. It comes when Darcy asks for Elizabeth’s hand in marriage. When she refuses, a swordfight breaks out between the two of them.
If the rest of the film had the same sense of fun about it, it could’ve worked. Most of the time, the tone is off just enough that even the seemingly can’t-miss scenes fall flat. Every now and then, Steers and company hit the right note and you can see what they were going for. That alone is worth a grin and a smile, but not enough to sustain an entire feature.