“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”
The first words spoken in “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” leave us with no doubt — this is not Jane Austen’s classic tale as we’ve ever seen it before.
Modified from the novel of the same name, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is a gleefully bizarre romp at its best and a dull period drama at its worst. Thankfully, the boring segments are few and far between, punctuated with self-satire and delightfully over-the-top action sequences.
The film opens upon 19th century London, where a small contingent of high-class Englishmen and women are combating those infected by a deadly plague, who have transformed into zombies.
This plot line is woven into the original “Pride and Prejudice” narrative, and we soon meet the Bennett family: Mr. and Mrs. Bennett and their five daughters. We’re introduced to our heroine, Lily James’ feisty Lizzie, as she sits with her sisters in the drawing room, cleaning zombie blood off their weapons.
It’s scenes like this that make “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” such a blast. The Bennett girls prepare for a ball, but along with the usual ribbon tying and corset tugging, they’re tucking knives into garter belts and strapping on samurai swords. Giggling over suitors takes place during martial arts training, and a stroll through the woods ends up in a nonchalant zombie slaughter.
The gorgeous costumes and sets make the film seem, at times, like any old BBC period piece, until a debutante pulls out a shotgun and blows someone’s face off. One particularly delightful sequence features the Bennett sisters slow-motion strutting through a banquet hall, cutting through the undead left and right (and looking fabulous all the while).
While Austen’s leading men are well represented (Matt Smith’s “odious” Mr. Collins is especially hilarious), it’s the badass Bennett girls that really carry the film. James is as good as expected and at this point might be Keira Knightley’s successor as queen of the costume drama.
Mr. Darcy is a tough character to pull off — he has to be a jerk throughout the majority of the film, but likable (and hot) enough that we don’t mind in the end.
While newcomer Sam Riley is good enough as “action-hero” Darcy, he doesn’t quite pull off the classic aspects of the role. Despite some brief sexual tension across a field of headless corpses, he and James have very little chemistry.
Jack Huston, however, is dashingly villainous as Lieutenant Wickham — no spoilers, but he plays a much larger part in this adaptation than fans of the original will expect. Huston, who quietly shone in last year’s “Longest Ride” but was overshadowed by Scott Eastwood’s abs, provides another rock-solid supporting performance. What do we have to do to get this guy a leading role?
Perennial badass Lena Headey makes an all-too brief cameo as the prickly Lady Catherine, who in this version sports an eye-patch and embroidered pantaloons. She’s wasted on the majority of her scenes, however, and tragically isn’t given any action at all.
If you’re going to put Headey in a zombie period piece, let her kick some undead ass. I’m tempted to mark this the most wasted casting since Gwendolyn Christie as Captain Phasma.
This movie knows exactly what we want to see, and it delivers in spades. It definitely drags in a few spots, but so does the original story. Here’s an idea: let’s start adding supernatural beings to all of the classic stories that we hated reading in high school. “Wuthering Wights,” “Great Ex-spook-tations,” “Gone Witch the Wind,” “Frankenstein,” “Dracula” … Hmm, nevermind.
Although far from a perfect movie, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is an amusing, compulsively re-watchable way to spend a few hours. Jane Austen may be turning in her grave at the thought of it, but unlike the hordes in this adaptation, let’s just hope that she stays there.
