Pride & Prejudice (and sometimes-but-not-really Zombies)

Look at all the girls with guns! Such feminism. Much empowerment.

So, I had a feeling it was gonna be bad. Trailers, tv spots, marketing posters. I felt waves of "We don't think it's that great, but we want you guys to spend money to see this!" coming from promo stuff. What would you expect from something that was an Urban Outfitters coffee table book until people actually started reading it? Now, I'm sure you're saying "Yeah well they got you! You spent money to see it!" In my defense the movies here cost me roughly $1.25 so pretty much anythings fair game when you have a free evening and you're in between movie seasons.

Part 1 of "Look! Women kick ass so that must mean we did a good thing!"

You'll read other reviews that say "This movie wasn't scary/zombie enough." I'd agree. I'd also add that it was too "Pride & Prejudice" for it's own good. Before you go questioning my motives allow me to assert: I've read the Jane Austen novel of the same name. An entertaining read and certainly a trendsetter for romances

She looks like the female Sky Captain
and the world of Yesteryear

It's like they took Pride & Prejudice and slapped Zombies in between the chapters. No, quite literally at the end of every Pride & Prejudice chapter [fade to black] is a sequence where the zombie story progresses. Since I'd much rather watch Pride & Prejudice or read the book again then deal with an exact remake I was drawn directly towards the zombie plotline. Four horsemen? An antichrist? A badass warrior queen (played by Lena Heady conflating her role from 300 and Game of Thrones - wonder how much she got paid...)? A family of warrior women with hopes and dreams of various degrees from lone warrior to domestic housewife? All of that intrigues me. So much of the zombie conceit needed setting up that after the long, opening scene, we needed a five minute explanation of what happened to this alternative world. *rolls eyes until they go back into head and starts hunting for brains*

But! It's advancing a feminine agenda! Look! The women are killing the zombies!

Except let's think about it: These warrior women who are trained in Wu Temple shaolin martial arts (the RZA should trademark that. He'd make a lot of money) armed with guns and swords are brought low by english boys in traditional 1800's garb. When put like that I guess I can see the attraction....

STILL! The problem is the movie upholds the standards of the book and we have to remember Pride & Prejudice was barely breaking trends at the time. In a modern society... It's honestly insulting. We can't hold up the standards of the original Pride & Prejudice to our current standards. All we really hear in the movie is "Women should get married." Which is the conceit of the book, the forwardness of the book is that Elizabeth doesn't settle for arranged marriages. She follows her tempestuous heart to it's ultimate, unlikely conclusion with a guy she initially hated (sound familiar? I told you, it's a trendsetter.) But the whole idea "Men take care of women when they marry them" is utter nonsense nowadays. It was utter nonsense in the 60's. This isn't Mad Men.

Why is HE holding the sword? She's the one
who saves his freakin' life!

I can imagine a board room full of uninspired studio executives standing in front of a white board with their version of a women's empowerment checklist:

Women's Empowerment (?):

 - Girls kicking zombie ass!!!!!!!!!!

 - Girl saves Darcy in act 3 finale

 - Girl resists marriage

 - Mother wants marriage (her fault)

 - Girls know kung fu

 - Girls... fire... guns...

^ I imagine they all start with 'girl(s)' since I also imagine studio executives were too small-minded to actually know their protagonist's name (or maybe they just called her not-Keira Knightley?)
Elizabeth can fight all the zombies she wants but the entire movie is Pride & Prejudice where the endgame is marriage to garner safety, albeit a marriage of passion/choice rather than arrangement. The whole two-dudes-fight-over-the-girl only gets mildly interesting when they literally fight (except they don't fight over the girl really...)

I'd like to say this was a film about class war with zombies as stand-ins for the economically disadvantaged since there's a moment of sympathy but they utterly destroy that moment when the zombies turn from civilized people into flesh-eating monsters (by Darcy's design I might add.) I'd say this was about a generational turn over of notions of marriage because all of their romantic problems can be traced back to their mother. EXCEPT, they marry the guys their mother proposed in the first place. I wish I could say this is a movie where women kick ass, but even though they are the protagonists they are really only seen through their relationship with other men. Elizabeth is the only one who directly acts in relationship to her sister (coming to their aid so much it's hard to imagine how they survived Wu Temple training.) They are constantly under the ire of men and at no point do they really break free of this convention. Even when they demonstrate their own agency, men just kind of steamroll this to make the drama all about themselves.

This is how the movie ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

The movie ultimately suffers because it's a direct remake of Pride & Prejudice. It limits itself by sticking too close to the original story. So much so that what makes the film interesting is neglected as a sideshow when we get too tired of cross-cutting faux action they-confess-their-feelings-while-fighting scenes. I hate that stuff. You can't say it's a spoof or an outright comedy because that would imply a inversion of at least some of the stereotypes/conventions (like a minimum 50% is that too high?) The film only gets up to about 10% at best... And nothing particularly new. The movie ends with the happy couples getting married and kissing gratuitously for no reason in front of a camera. The director even tacked on a scene at the end with a lingering question of a sequel. Don't get your hopes up.

I hope the Four Horsemen and the Antichrist murder all of the characters in this world. I hope one of the warrior Queen steps up to the plate and commands a counter force. I hope the women enslaved to marriage realize their mistake, divorce their husbands, and slay the Four Horsemen (but only at the cost of someone really important to them.) I kind of hope their mother just dies and nobody cares.

I paid $1.25 to see something so bad Urban Outfitters kept it as a coffee table book after it gained bestseller status. Keep this movie in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart. Where it belongs.

It's literally a coffee table book.

P.S. They never delivered on real kung-fu action. There was all this talk of Chinese martial arts vs Japanese martial arts and they never once delivered.... They even teased a girl vs girl kung fu fight. Such a shame.