Review of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) by Eric K — 11 Dec 2015

I went in with little to poor expectations coming off something like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter that didn't receive good reviews nor did I even bother to watch. But this movie has a sense of knowing it is a farce dropping easter eggs for Pride and Prejudice fans and even the way some of the actors give their performances with some being ultra serious and others giving crazy and cooky performances.

The stand out here is Matt Smith who I've seen in maybe one or two things but he is most known for Doctor Who which I don't watch. Every line he delivers is great and hilarious even just some of the little things he does body movement and reactions wise.

Lily James was perfectly fine in Cinderella so seeing her here again I was enjoyable showing even more strength and wit in this performance. She's also a wonderful action star as well and I hope she continues to do some of these roles.

Lately we have been seeing actresses in action movies doing really well at balancing being kick ass while also giving a great performance and James is one of those. The weak link here is Sam Reilly who has 0 charisma and chemistry as Mr.

Darcy and does not sell any of the final key scenes. His performance diminishes the way this movie ends by making it feel like it just was not earned. All of the sisters, the mom, and some of the workers for the family are great and Charles Dance is great for the little he has to do but Lena Heady and partly Jack Huston also were kind of weak in their roles.

When the movie wants to be witty and humorous it really works especially the scenes with Smith but the romance and dramatic scenes are so what flat and boring. The biggest things with plot or story is when we got to the final scene I was kind of looking around and saying "wait did we just get the climax of this movie? Was that what just happened? That was pretty weak" and it teases something that could have worked for a climax as their mid credits extra scene.

But some other highlights are the costumes, make up, hair, art direction, production design, and the sound which was really great because they did something where the zombies' groans were placed behind you from one of the speakers to the point I almost yelled at someone from talking but it was part of the movie so I found that cool.

So overall, not sure what will be released the same week of this but in the usual field of Jan/Feb movies, this is one that I think people will enjoy in the midst of the usual production company's dump of crap.