A classic tale by Jane Austen gets a demented spin, in “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”. Based on an actual novel of the same name by Seth Grahme-Smith, A zombie outbreak has fallen upon the land in Jane Austen’s classic tale of the tangled relationships between lovers from different social classes in 19th century England. Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James) is a master of martial arts and weaponry. Along with her sisters, Elizabeth searches for the right man who can unlock her heart, as well as respect her honor of the sword and fighting styles that she has been taught for her entire life. With the arrival of the rich and handsome Colonel Darcy (Sam Reilly), he instills knowledge to the lower class Bennet family on how to fight back against the horde of flesh eaters. As the zombie outbreak intensifies, they must swallow their pride and join forces on the blood-soaked battlefield. Uniting a lifetime of social prejudice to fight an army dead-set on removing them all. “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is rated PG-13 and is written and directed by Burr Steers.

Steers film adaptation finds itself haltered at the foot of a rating that does no justice to the horror genre or the source material itself to truly bring out the fun in this script. It’s easy enough to see how this film got a PG-13 rating when you consider that there are very few risky scenes in the film. Quite honestly, it’s not a terrible “Pride and Prejudice” adaptation, but the film skimps viciously on the third tier of its title. First of all, there is very little blood or gore in the movie. For a film whose trailer focused on the most brutal of violence, the audience will come to find that there is very little of it in the movie. Every violent scene that you saw in the trailer is all there really is in the film, as more times than once the film forgets that there are even flesh eaters at all in this universe. The zombies are brought back when the story feels pinched for entertainment, and this doesn’t bring out the best in this adversary. What little zombie brutality there is for the film happens with close ups so awfully shot that you can barely make out what is happening when a body is being ripped apart. Even worse than this is a scene that might as well take place in a red light room because it is so hard to make out any kind of definition in the characters or their actions.

One thing that left me clueless was the lack of female empowerment for a movie that is practically based around it. The film does a solid job in the first act at establishing these sisters and their deadly training, treating the audience to some fast-paced practice fighting that looked as brutal as anything BUT an exhibition. These scenes are crisply choreographed and tightly edited for shots that always kept the audience blinking. My problem with this was the film practically forgets about them by the third act when all hell breaks loose. With the exception of Elizabeth, these sisters are used as arm pieces to male dominated fight scenes that overcrowd the screen time. The writing team had enough to introduce these ladies and their special set of skills, but didn’t feel like there was enough time in the 103 minute run time to show off what they could do against an army of possibilities?

The acting was one of the few things that I felt really worked for this film. I mentioned earlier how this movie works as just a “Pride and Prejudice” feature, and that’s mostly because the kind of serious tone that goes into this production. The actors and actresses invest the most into their performances, and really only one of the roles bothered me in the film. Lily James is breathtaking as a take-no-nonsense woman growing up during a time when her monetary value lessens her features in her male suitors. Female audiences will find a lot of value in her character because fighting always comes first to love. This clearly isn’t just another good looking woman, and it was great to see some dimension to a character in such an original story in which females blended together easily. I was also quite impressed with the work of Sam Reilly. As the script moves forward we learn more about his reactions, and it’s kind of nice to be at that position of whether or not this guy has the best intentions. Reilly never smiles, and I think it’s an explanation in his battle-tested backstory without being obvious to the audience. The only role that felt out of place to me was that of “Dr Who’s” own Matt Smith. Smith is a solid actor in other projects, but his comedic schtick felt very out of place in this world. I mentioned earlier how the movie plays it pretty straight, so the film just feels desperate when Smith appears, complete with his bumbling idiot personality and goofy background music wherever he goes.

For me, the very best offerings for the film are during the first hour of the movie when everything is paced pretty well. The third act is where the movie really starts to get sloppy and shove too much development into such a short period. It gives the movie an uneven feel for the kind of tempo it created early on in the movie which proved to be just entertaining enough to get us through the lack of carnage candy. “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” lacks any kind of bite to give its audience any kind of fun to the kind of silly idea that they think they are walking into. It’s played straight to a fault, and it begs the question why they didn’t just make another “Pride and Prejudice” movie if they weren’t going to do anything with their title characters in the first place.

Is February over yet?

4/10