My family and I reluctantly trudged through snow on our way to see Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: a modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I was skeptical of how such a film could link a zombie apocalypse and the classic love story of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, but we decided to give it a chance.

The movie opened with a prologue narrated by Mr. Bennet. It explained the epidemic of the undead caused by the plague. The English people of the 1800s, accustomed to killing, treated the undead as merely a day-to-day inconvenience. The beginning of the movie is centered on the arrival of Mr. Bingley (played by Douglas Booth), a handsome, wealthy bachelor and his good friend Mr. Darcy (Sam Riley), a socially awkward military official. Following the classic storyline, Elizabeth’s sister, Jane, is matched to Mr. Bingley.

The iconic romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy begins to develop as zombies are routinely slaughtered.

Mr. Darcy’s character fails to portray the socially awkward Mr. Darcy, and instead, he seems angry and cold. In Austen’s work, Mr. Darcy is portrayed as kind yet a bit socially awkward and distant. Throughout this film, the expression of Mr. Darcy’s love for Elizabeth is nowhere near convincing. On the other hand, Elizabeth Bennet, played by Lily James, is a refreshing character whose acting skills outshine those of her male counterpart. Mr. Wickham, considered a supporting character, successfully takes on a mysterious air, similar to how he is portrayed in the classic novel; in the film, he artfully portrays a combination of both good and hidden evil, similar to the text.

In my opinion, this movie should be given 3 out of 5 stars. The repetitive killing of zombie after zombie is entertaining at first, but later, it contributed to the immense boredom I felt when watching this film. The zombie apocalypse storyline was craftily done, and would have been even more successful had it not been combined with Pride and Prejudice. I felt it should have just been a zombie movie or a remake of Pride and Prejudice rather than a combination of the two. As I have said, I didn’t know what to expect, but for me, these two different storylines combined just didn’t work well.

This modern adaption of Pride and Prejudice, set in the 1800s, turns England into a war zone in which the main characters, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, unite to defeat the common enemy: zombies. In my opinion, this movie was a disrespectful  remake of Jane Austen’s timeless classic. In terms of recommendations,  this movie may be enjoyable to moderate zombie and horror lovers who like a classic love story in the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse.