Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

As a Pride and Prejudice superfan, this movie makes my heart happy. Don't expect it to be fully "period accurate," after all there were not actually zombies in Jane Austen times. One of my favorite things about this movie is we get more of Lizzie and Darcy together, and even a tantalizing fight scene between the two of them. Full justice has been done to Wickham's character as well. Sam Riley makes an amazing Darcy. (Colin Firth first, Sam Riley second, none others are worth mentioning except perhaps Colin Firth again as Mark Darcy.) Some of the lines have been changed to include quotes from other Jane Austen novels, which I love! The writing is very clever. It can get pretty gory, but honestly this is a more P&P book-accurate adaptation than the disgrace which is the 2005 movie. Oh and Mr. Collins in this is just *chef's kiss*!

==The Bad==
Let's start with the bad first. I feel like the plotline was abridged. Now I'm not familiar with Emily Brontë's novels outside the dreadfully dull Wuthering Heights. But I've seen the book on shelves and it's looks like an epic. I feel like the Zombie version of the novel is likewise a deep and engaging story. I feel like the film left things out. Which is a shame because so much of it is done well and yet I feel there are areas where there is room to explore.

The second thing I didn't like is a bit of camera framing. To put it frankly there's too much sex in the camera. This might seem ironic considering other aspects of the film but it just felt a bit gauche to have so much of certain scenes to be dedicated to heaving bosoms. For instance there's a scene where Elizabeth Bennett (James) and Fitzwilliam Darcy (Riley) fight out their emotions (1:06:41). They basically have an argument and it devolves into fighting so the men-folk like me can be engaged as well. The problem is the film is so engaging that the fight feels slightly superfluous. But the fight is done well so it doesn't matter except for two specific shots. In the fight she cuts off the buttons on his jacket. Now in my headcannon I imagine this is just to show that she scored a point by holding back her killing blow as one does. It looks like that sort of blade play you see all the time in movies. Two guys will fight with knives and they'll tap the weak spots when they could have won the fight ya know if they were legitimately trying to kill each other but this is just training or sparring or whatever. So back to the fight with Mr Dacy who follows up with his own version by cutting the buttons her blouse (or dress or whatever it is you call what she's wearing). The camera lingers for just a few frames too long where you see the buttons fly off and her adequate bosom heave free of the restrictive buttons. The next maneuver is Ms Bennett attacking the prone Darcy and him countering ending up with her on her back and him on top of her. A position that already suggests a level of sexual tension by the camera shots enhance it (unnecessarily). Shot 1: The counter move shot with the camera man on the ground looking up at Ms Bennett as she tried to get him and he reverses. Shot 2: Camera man on his knees aimed at her chest as she heavily breathes Shot 3: Standing behind Mr Darcy as Ms Bennett scolds him (because they're in the middle of an argument. That second shot doesn't linger but it stands out as one of many that could have been skipped that seem to randomly highlight sexy characters for no real reason.

==The Good==
That's basically everything I don't like about the film. Now these are minor quips in spite of how much time I've spent explaining them relative to what I imagine will be a quick run down of the things the movie does excellently.

The plotline and writing are excellent. I don't know how true they are but they feel perfectly within their context. The zombie threat replaces what I assume is some sort of war threat (again i've never read the books). There's nuance to the zombie threat and while most of it is explained in the final scenes a lot of it could have used some deeper exposition which calls back to the abridged complaint. Yet everything felt consistent. When new aspects are revealed about the zombies it doesn't feel spontaneous but plausibly unexplored.

The action is solid. I believed everyone's character. Due to abridged complaint I would have liked to see more of some characters but that's the way things go with adaptions. The action and the fights were excellent. It doesn't have the overdone acrobatics of Marvel films but a more grounded style that appeared more skillful. The girls whether with guns or swords appear to be well practiced fighters and yet human. The only thing that seemed off was when a character is [spoiler]-- character survives a horde of zombies[/spoiler]. In retrospect the explanation makes sense but I kinda feel that the character's situation at that point should have _looked_ different.

yet with all the obvious cuts everything came together well. For a movie about relationships it's big issue whether the relationships feel real. Insta-Love is a HUGE problem in YA Lit and with YA Lit adaptions becoming popular it's posed to become the biggest annoyance trope in films to be released. P&P&Z avoids this.

I didn't expect this movie to be as awesome as it was. Perfect combination of everything that's Jane Austen and zombies. I loved that neither of those two worlds gets overthrown by the other.

this is my mr darcy

Well, I thought the idea of this movie seemed so ridiculous but I have to say I was really surprised how much I really liked this film!!! Bravo to the person (or people) who came up with this premise!

Zombies are absolutely my jam (Big time The Walking Dead fan here)!

I started watching this, unsure how Pride and Prejudice could work out with zombies... if at all...
And although the first ten minutes were something to get used to (mostly, I am guessing, an adjusting to the reality of the world we're presented), I was surprised to see how wonderfully it, in fact, did work out.
Sometimes a little over the top and silly, but I don't think it was made to be taken entirely seriously. Like the fighting scene between the sisters, and the "quarrel" between Darcy and Lizzy. Over the top indeed. Yet on the other hand, they did not sprinkle it with anything untowards like *gasp* kissing or other before engagements and the such, which gave me the impression it was still aptly fitting into its timeframe. And as that, I did thoroughly enjoy it. 7.8 stars.

What speaks more passionately of love than fighting back to back against a horde of zombies? I know not what.

There is a lot of emotions in this movie

Surprisingly good movie. I went into it not expecting much and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

Some great scenery along with pretty decent acting (although I found Lena Headey's character a bit ridiculous) over come some poor dialog and the occasional cringe worthy scene.

Some fairly large plot holes cause the movie to bounce incoherently at times (especially the ability to travel what appear to be large distances very quickly and the constant insistence on traveling alone in known zombie areas!), although, if you accept the premise of zombies, it's pretty easy to overlook the incoherency.

Overall, I gave Pride and Prejudice and Zombies a 7 out of 10 and look forward to the sequel, if there is one!

“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” Review

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I have been hearing great reviews about this film for the past few weeks from various people, and I have to say they weren’t wrong. This movie was thoroughly entertaining, and fun throughout. The dark and serious tone of the film contrasted perfectly with the ridiculous premise, creating great humor...

View full review at https://medium.com/@MaximilianL/pride-and-prejudice-and-zombies-review-475159143aa8#.t69sof4hz

Went in years after just barely giving it a miss, and not expecting a good match, but was very pleasantly surprised by how fun it was. Admitedly, Elizabeth/Darcy does seem abrupt and underdeveloped, and I found the ending predictably saccharine (*with a positive caveat), but I found myself laughing early and often, and the action scenes were actually a pretty good watch—though the three non-zombie martial arts scenes were the best. Lizzi's iconic pants and blue coat outfit was also quite nice, and didn't get enough show to appreciate onscreen. This needs to be remedied in a new video game since a sequel never materialized.

It could have done with a somewhat darker tone (literally, as in more scenes in a dark setting), but it _is_ an adaptation of _P&P_; and so, dreary, cloudy, deathly pale England unfortunately has to be shown.

Would watch again. Great date night movie with the right person.

Funnily enough, the central conflict that is revealed later had some rather compelling points that could be discussed and debated as much as a good episode of Star Trek.

[spoiler] What if England's traditional aristocracy had been overthrown and London turned into a zombie war fallout ground zero no-go zone? What if humanity had been reduced to a small fraction of its size at the upswing of the industrial and population boom? Wichkam's God of the Dead could be quite a compelling villain if written correctly. [/spoiler]