Movie Reaction: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Formula: Pride & Prejudice + Warm Bodies

Cast: I didn't recognize a lot of the cast. I only knew Lily James (Elizabeth Bennet), Bella Heathcote (Jane Bennet), Charles Dance (Mr. Bennet), Lena Heady (Lady Catherine), Matt Smith (Parson Collins), and Emma Greenwell (Caroline Bingley). There's also Sam Riley (Mr. Darcy), Douglas Booth (Mr. Bingley), Sally Phillips (Mrs. Bennet), and Jack Huston (George Wickham).

Plot: I'm not reading Pride and Prejudice for you. If you don't know that story, I can't help you. Assuming you know that much, it's the P&P story except there's been a Zombie outbreak. Mr. Darcy is a renowned zombie hunter and the Bennet sisters are well trained in warfare.

Thoughts:
This is clever. Really clever. I've read Pride and Prejudice. I haven't read Zombies though, so I came into this movie with the ideal level of familiarity. I lightly chuckled continuously for the first ten or so minutes of the movie. While I laughed plenty throughout the movie, nothing is played for jokes. The joke is that this exists. Everything about the movie is played completely straight. That is the right call.

The cast is well assembled. I'd watch a standard version of Pride & Prejudice starring Lily James and Sam Riley. They both believably kick ass too. Going in, I didn't know that either could. Jack Huston has a great time hamming it up and Matt Smith does a great job making Parson Collins insufferable. I wish Bella Heathcote was given more to do. I'm not sure anyone even told Charles Dance and Sally Phillips that they weren't shooting a regular Pride & Prejudice, which is a good way to go about it.

The story is a tough thing to get right. Writer/Director Burr Steers does everything he can, but there's still some issues. And, these issues probably go back to the book. P&P&Z tries to keep the story of P&P in tact while making it an action movie. That is incredibly hard to do. The first act is mostly setup anyway, so that's where the cleverness drives everything. The second act falls back into the original source material a lot and is by far where the movie drags the most. The third act requires a lot of contortions to make it work. Mostly it's successful, albeit clunky. This reminded me a lot of Warm Bodies. Both movies are pitched on the zombie element, but at their heart, they are true to the classic stories they are based on.

It's tough. The biggest thing holding the movie back is the reason it exists in the first place. There's an insane zombie kill-em-all movie in this, like a Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters, that it has to continually pull back from.

Elephant in the Room:  You can't possibly call Lily James "plain looking". That's the kind of complaint you can make for a direct Pride and Prejudice adaptation, but for something as ridiculous as this, it's falling on deaf ears.

To Sum Things Up:
The target audience for this is very specific. If you can get past the point of entry problems, there's plenty to enjoy about the movie. When the title is the joke of the movie, it's always hard to make something that's good, start to finish. This is a good effort though.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend