PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (2016) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

pride and prejudice and zombies (2016) movie

Genre               |   Horror

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |  107 minutes

Released         |   25 February 2016

cast

Lily James as Elizabeth Bennet
Sam Riley as Mr. Darcy
Charles Dance as Mr. Bennet
Lena Hedey as Lady Catherie de Bourgh

director

​Burr Steers

writer

​Burr Steers ... (screenplay)
 
Jane Austen ... (Quirk Books novel) and
Seth Grahame-Smith ... (Quirk Books novel)

cinematographer

​Remi Adefarasin

music

​Fernando Velázquez ​

film editor

Padraic McKinley

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box office result

Worldwide             $16,405,171 ​

Australia                 $​​​130,802

North America        $​10,938,134    

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the best dialogue

Mr. Bennet: [to Mr. Collins] My daughters are trained for battle, sir, not the kitchen.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh: [to Elizabeth] I do not know which I admire more. Your skill as a warrior or your resolve as a woman.

Elizabeth Bennet: Mr. Darcy, you're as unfeeling as the undead.

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PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (2016) IMAGES

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (2016) STORY SYNOPSIS

​The five highly trained Bennett sisters in Georgian England must try to protect themselves from the growing zombie threat, find suitable husbands for themselves, battle marriage proposals and unlikely suitors, and save the country before it's too late.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (2016) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 4 March 2016
​Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐

While the Jane Austen elements of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES dominate the production design and performances, the alternative history in which the film is set allows Director Burr Steers the opportunity to present this classic tale in a unique fashion; albeit with mixed results. The movie will not be to all tastes and hardcore Horror and Zombie fans will feel short-changed by the relative lack of brain-munching, blood-gushing antics that would be expected of a film with word “ZOMBIES” in the title. Unfortunately, the fact it has the Z word in the title may be a deterrent to mainstream audiences who might pre-judge the film on the basis of this; given the relative lack of promotion the film has received in the lead-up to its release.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES is a derivative of Jane Austen’s Classic tale based on the novel of the same name by writer Seth Grahame-Smith, who has already forged a stellar career crafting “mash-ups” of familiar historical characters in the Horror genre with such fare as ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER. Taking away the Zombie element, the film’s story is a beat-for-beat retelling of Austen’s tome, following the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James) and Mr.Darcy (Sam Riley). While the original PRIDE & PREJUDICE has its fair share of feminine affirmative action, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES takes this and amplifies it; infusing Elizabeth and her four sisters with an array of military and martial arts skills to defend themselves against the Zombies that have spread far and wide across the English countryside.

Where the film deviates from both the original Jane Austen novel and Grahame-Smith’s mash-up is in the Final Act. Steers, who also wrote the screenplay, opts for a very conventional finale; contriving circumstance to force his two leads into a forced appreciation of each other that invalidates much of what has happened in the previous two Acts. The film also has some difficulty in finding the right tone between its English Regancy-era melodrama and the outright violence required to properly despatch with the plague-ridden Zombies. Steers tries to keep it on the straight and narrow, but it’s hard to take matters seriously with the sheer number of Undead that Elizabeth, Darcy and the rest of the cast have to contend with. Steers introduces an interesting sub-plot into narrative halfway through the film that helps to clarify a key character’s motivation heading into the finale, but other narrative leaps (and straight-out omissions) fail to capitalise and explore the alternative history opportunities that could have seen Austen’s novel play out in a very different way.

Lily James and Sam Riley are very solid as Elizabeth and Mr.Darcy, but some other performances are well below par. Matt Smith as Parson Collins is all over the place and his awkward Rowan Atkinson FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL take-off at the end of the film is the icing on the cake of what is a pretty poor performance. Douglas Booth as Mr.Bingley also fails to make an impression, but that always seems to be the case for anyone who plays the role. By default, Bingley is very vanilla by comparison to his colleague, Mr.Darcy. Supporting players such as Charles Dance, Sally Phillips and Lana Heady help to bolster the relatively young cast and provide the film with the “English” flavour it requires and help off-set a portion of the Zombie absurdity. Despite this, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES never quite fully realises the potential of its premise and, much like its titular Zombies, feels likes its conceptually “undead”; stuck in some nether-genre that exists somewhere between Drama and Horror.

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