Pride And Prejudice And Zombies

For F*** Magazine

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES

Director : Burr Steers
Cast : Lily James, Sam Riley, Jack Huston, Bella Heathcote, Douglas Booth, Matt Smith, Charles Dance
Genre : Horror/Thriller
Run Time : 107 mins
Opens : 11 February 2016
Rating : NC16 (Violence)

Something is rotten in the state of England – human flesh. It is the 19^th Century and a plague has befallen the nation, resulting in zombie hordes. Country gentleman Mr. Bennet (Dance) has ensured that his five daughters are trained in martial arts and weaponry to defend themselves against zombies, while Mrs. Bennet (Sally Phillips) is more concerned that they marry well. When the wealthy and single Mr. Bingley (Booth) purchases a nearby house, Mrs. Bennet sends her daughters to the first ball where Bingley is expected to appear. The girls defend the party from a zombie attack, and attraction sparks between Mr. Bingley and the eldest daughter Jane (Heathcote). Meanwhile, the second eldest daughter Elizabeth (James) clashes with Bingley's friend, noted zombie slayer Col. Fitzwilliam Darcy (Riley). Meanwhile, local militia leader George Wickham (Huston), who had a falling out with Darcy, takes a shine to Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Darcy must overcome personal pride and societal prejudices to battle the zombie menace and discover their true love for each other.

            Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is based on the 2009 parody novel of the same name by Seth Grahame-Smith, who combined Jane Austen’s 1813 classic Pride and Prejudice with zombie fiction elements. A film adaptation has been in the works since even before the novel’s publication, with Natalie Portman set to star as Elizabeth and David O. Russell directing. Alas, the end result doesn’t have quite that level of pedigree, with 17 Again’s Burr Steers writing the adapted screenplay and directing. Portman remains as a producer. Across the development process, it ended up that Grahame-Smith’s follow-up novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter got a film adaptation first.

            While Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was criticised for being too self-serious, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies acknowledges its inherent absurdity more readily. It’s not a dour affair and there is a great deal of winking self-awareness to be had, which led to this reviewer laughing more than he anticipated to. However, it’s quickly all too apparent that this is built on just one joke, that zombies are having their heads blown to bits amidst all the Jane Austen refinement. This is how the idea was conceived: an editor at Quirk books literally compared a list of “fanboy characters” like ninjas, pirates, zombies and monkeys with public domain classics like War and Peace, Crime and Punishment and Wuthering Heights. Sounds arbitrary, doesn’t it? This laziness comes through and the novelty factor proves insufficient in sustaining the film.

            We’ve had Charlize Theron with a bionic arm driving a giant oil tanker across a post-apocalyptic wasteland and Emily Blunt in a mech suit fighting aliens, so kickass heroines are in vogue. In this film, the Bennet girls were trained in a Shaolin monastery and are proficient in various forms of combat. In one scene, two of the sisters engage in sparring practice while gushing over Mr. Bingley, speaking the original Austen dialogue. It’s pretty fun.

James makes for an adequate plucky, wilful protagonist and the actress demonstrates her awareness of the type of film she’s in. The Cinderella and Downton Abbey star is perfectly convincing as an aristocratic 19^th Century English woman fighting social norms, albeit a little less convincing as a formidable zombie killer. Riley’s Mr. Darcy is brusque and brooding, clad in a leather duster. Unfortunately, Riley and James share little chemistry and there’s no flow to the progression of their relationship. Matt Smith showcases good comic timing as the bumbling clergyman Mr. Collins, heir to the Bennet estate. In Austen’s original novel, George Wickham turned out to be a liar and conman, if not an out-and-out villain. Things end a little differently here. Huston’s pulchritude has a slight tinge of menace, which makes him suited to the role. Dance is a welcome presence as the kindly yet strict Bennet patriarch, but his Game of Thrones co-star Lena Headey gets all too little screen time as the eyepatch-wearing Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Many readers have used charts and diagrams to follow the interwoven relationships in Pride and Prejudice. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies trips up when it tries to get through the plot of the story as quickly as possible so it can get to the next zombie attack. The genre mashup isn’t as seamless and confident as it needs to be to fully sell the conceit. Furthermore, the action sequences aren’t particularly memorable. It’s also lacking the raw sex appeal of, uh, Colin Firth.

Summary: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is not the unmitigated train-wreck it could’ve been, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that all the premise should sustain is a mock trailer on Funny or Die.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Dark Shadows

For F*** Movie Magazine Singapore

Movie Review                                                                                                                    25/4/12

DARK SHADOWS

(2012)

Starring: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green

Directed by: Tim Burton

            Tim Burton seems to have found his magic formula for success: slap pale makeup onto Johnny Depp, dress him in Colleen Atwood-designed costumes and have Danny Elfman playing in the background. Here, Burton and his muse take on Dark Shadows, the ‘60s supernatural soap opera created by Dan Curtis. There have been several attempts to revive the series, all falling flat. Do Burton and Depp fare any better?

            Depp plays Barnabas Collins, the wealthy heir to a fishery empire, whose family had relocated from Liverpool to Maine in the 18^th Century. Servant girl Angelique (Green) has fallen for him, but Barnabas spurns her love for Josette (Bella Heathcote). Angelique, secretly a witch, kills Barnabas’ parents, his true love and curses Barnabas to become a vampire. The angry townspeople lock him in a steel coffin and bury him alive.

            200 years later, a construction crew unearths Barnabas’ coffin, and the awoken vampire returns home to Collinswood, the crumbling family mansion. It is now inhabited by Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Pfeiffer) and her nuclear family, including brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), rebellious daughter Carolyn (Chloe Moretz), nephew David (Gulliver McGarth), drunken housekeeper Willie (Jackie Earle Haley) and live-in psychiatrist Dr Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter) and new arrival governess Victoria Winters (Heathcote) – seemingly a reincarnation of Josette. Barnabas goes about trying to rebuild the family name and fortune, while thwarting the machinations of Angelique – still alive and running the rival Angelbay Seafood business.

            When the trailer for the film was released, many criticised the apparently comedic tone of the film, especially when compared to the deadly serious source material. In the hands of Johnny Depp, Barnabas has become his usual quirky, fish-out-of-water (fitting given the fishery town setting) eccentric. Much of the film plays on his unfamiliarity with 70’s-era America, and while some moments are amusing, other gags are about as old as Barnabas himself.

            The main thing going for Dark Shadows is its 70s setting, as reinterpreted by Tim Burton. His gothic sensibilities and the age of hippies and bad haircuts may seem odd bedfellows, but the collision of these two worlds is visually arresting and undoubtedly stylish, and there’s plenty of nostalgia to be had between the lava lamps, the Carpenters and Alice Cooper as himself (whom Barnabas dubs “the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen”).

The cast is also fairly impressive and generally well-chosen.  Femme fatale Eva Green clearly enjoys vamping (heh) it up and Chloe Moretz gives her a run for her money, which wouldn’t be so unsettling if the actress wasn’t 15 years old. Michelle Pfeiffer makes for a good lady-of-the-house, and Helena Bonham Carter is typically, entertainingly nuts. Bella Heathcote lends a wide-eyed, other-worldly appeal to Josette/Victoria, but is otherwise weaker than her cast mates. There’s also a cameo from another famous cinematic vampire, who has previously played Depp’s father in another Burton film.

            Beyond that however, the cracks start to show, just as they do on Angelique’s face. The film struggles to find a cohesive tone, and the horror and comedy elements don’t blend as well as they should. Burton’s fascination with the grotesque overwhelms other components of the film, and there consequently isn’t much room for meaningful character development. Sometimes the campy approach works for the movie, but just as many times it works against it, diminishing any semblance of weight.

            Another point of contention is that Burton seems to be cribbing from another famous gothic TV family, as evidenced by the film’s tagline “strange is relative” being uncannily similar to “weird is relative”. Truth be told, Morticia, Wednesday, Lurch and Uncle Fester are generally more interesting to watch than the Collins-Stoddards.

            Long-time fans of Burton, Depp and especially the two together are likely to enjoy this, but it’s really more of the same from both, and is nowhere near as inventive or clever as it imagines itself to be. Still, if it’s a vampire having a chat with hippies you’re after, you won’t be too disappointed.

SUMMARY: Aimed squarely at those who speak Burton-ese, but unlikely to make converts of those who don’t, leaving them in the shadows.

RATING: 3/5 STARS

Jedd Jong