Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

My wife Andrea and I finally cleared off a movie we’ve had on DVR since October, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because Andrea will watch almost anything with Matt Smith in it, even a movie with zombies. 

The movie is adapted from a book which takes Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and adds zombies. The Bennett sisters are trained warrior in the fight against the zombies that ravage the English countryside. But even with the ever present threat of zombies, the niceties and rituals of upper class English society must continue to be observed with tea parties and balls as well as the machinations of upstanding young men and women of exceptional breeding and class seeking arrangements of marriage. 

It’s all very proper and civilized but with moments of zombies being hacked into bloody pieces.  Matt Smith is actually in this movie, unlike all the hoo-ha about Matt being in Terminator Genesys and he's in it for maybe 1 minute 35 seconds. Here, Matt is Parson Collins, an overbearing twit who has come to seek the hand of a Bennet sister in matrimony. Matt is very funny in the role of a man eager to assert an elevated station in society with a lot of name dropping and unearned confidence. After being rejected by his first two choices, Collins finally gets a Bennet sister to agree to marry him. I guess compared to a world overrun by zombies, marriage to Parson Collins isn't all trhat bad. 


Lily James (who by the way is Matt Smith’s girlfriend) is Elizabeth Bennet who has little patience for the rituals of upper class English society and is much more comfortable with a book or fighting zombies.  Sam Riley is Fitzwilliam Darcy with a persistent glower worthy of Batman or Wolverine.  Like Elizabeth, he too has little regard for the desires of society; he is more inclined to focus on his activities as a skilled zombie-killer.


With so much in common. Elizabeth and Darcy would seem to be suited for one another but Darcy is a bit too uptight for Elizabeth’s tastes. Then Liz obtains information that further diminishes any appeal Darcy may have had for her. Liz is working with less than the full story but it all gets sorted out by the end. 

 
Basically Pride and Prejudice and Zombies  is predicated upon a very simple, single premise: Pride and Prejudice but with ZOMBIES!!!

It is an absurd concept that shouldn’t really work as well as it does.  It's not a great movie but it is an entertaining diversion with some quality BBC acting and some really scary thrills with the zombie parts. 

If you came for the Pride and Prejudice, you also get a pretty good zombie movie. If you came for the zombies, you get exposure to one of the classics of English literature.

Yes, the zombies are gruesome but for the most part, it’s not overbearing. We see just enough of the zombies to sufficiently horrify us and remind us of the extreme fragility of the niceties and rituals of upper class English society.