Just the title of this movie gets me excited, and not in that way, don’t be gross; but because it combines two of my most favorite fictional entities, the Jane Austen canon and Zombies! Admittedly, upon first seeing Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel with a rather deteriorated looking English deb on the cover, I rolled my eyes. It seemed blasphemous to mix the lovely language and sentiments of Ms. Austen’s work with the trending topic of the day for a chuckle and a few bucks or even a few million. And then I read a few pages from the book and well...my mind was changed and having recently seen the film, I see this fanfic to be closer to fanlove.
Is Pride, Prejudice and Zombies a glowing cinematic achievement? Meh, probably not, but that doesn’t discount the film entirely. What we have with PP&Z is a lightheartedly grotesque romp through Austenland with the Bennett sisters now Shoalin trained ass-kicking warriors, Mr. Darcy (Sam Riley) is a General defending a soon-to-be overrun London against the impenetrable hordes of the undead, and Lady Katherine (Lena Headey) is Legend. All actors bring their best Austen performances to the table but the most notable and to me most surprising performance overall was Matt Smith’s Mr. Collins. Now, I have more than a few issues with Matt Smith, all of them Doctor Who related, but here I actually adore him. All of his scenes are hilarious and he plays Collins with perfect comedic timing, making this traditionally despised character someone you want to see more of...hard to believe? Yeah, no kidding. I won’t ruin where Wickham fits into all of this but know he maintains peak assholiness with a dash of charm as per usual.
The movie progresses in typical Pride and Prejudice manor with the stakes raised as all of England hangs in the balance of Lizzie and Darcy learning to trust one another and partner to bring down the dark forces at work. So, this weekend, if you’re looking for fun mixed in with few epic lines of Jane’s best and a good dose of Girl Power, look no further than this ridiculous and delightful stroll down a now much darker memory lane.
Have fun out there!
