The Bad
Let's start with the bad first. I feel like the plotline was abridged. Now I'm not familiar with Emily Brontë's novels outside the dreadfully dull Wuthering Heights. But I've seen the book on shelves and it's looks like an epic. I feel like the Zombie version of the novel is likewise a deep and engaging story. I feel like the film left things out. Which is a shame because so much of it is done well and yet I feel there are areas where there is room to explore.The second thing I didn't like is a bit of camera framing. To put it frankly there's too much sex in the camera. This might seem ironic considering other aspects of the film but it just felt a bit gauche to have so much of certain scenes to be dedicated to heaving bosoms. For instance there's a scene where Elizabeth Bennett (James) and Fitzwilliam Darcy (Riley) fight out their emotions (1:06:41). They basically have an argument and it devolves into fighting so the men-folk like me can be engaged as well. The problem is the film is so engaging that the fight feels slightly superfluous. But the fight is done well so it doesn't matter except for two specific shots. In the fight she cuts off the buttons on his jacket. Now in my headcannon I imagine this is just to show that she scored a point by holding back her killing blow as one does. It looks like that sort of blade play you see all the time in movies. Two guys will fight with knives and they'll tap the weak spots when they could have won the fight ya know if they were legitimately trying to kill each other but this is just training or sparring or whatever. So back to the fight with Mr Dacy who follows up with his own version by cutting the buttons her blouse (or dress or whatever it is you call what she's wearing). The camera lingers for just a few frames too long where you see the buttons fly off and her adequate bosom heave free of the restrictive buttons. The next maneuver is Ms Bennett attacking the prone Darcy and him countering ending up with her on her back and him on top of her. A position that already suggests a level of sexual tension by the camera shots enhance it (unnecessarily). Shot 1: The counter move shot with the camera man on the ground looking up at Ms Bennett as she tried to get him and he reverses. Shot 2: Camera man on his knees aimed at her chest as she heavily breathes Shot 3: Standing behind Mr Darcy as Ms Bennett scolds him (because they're in the middle of an argument. That second shot doesn't linger but it stands out as one of many that could have been skipped that seem to randomly highlight sexy characters for no real reason.
The Good
That's basically everything I don't like about the film. Now these are minor quips in spite of how much time I've spent explaining them relative to what I imagine will be a quick run down of the things the movie does excellently.The plotline and writing are excellent. I don't know how true they are but they feel perfectly within their context. The zombie threat replaces what I assume is some sort of war threat (again i've never read the books). There's nuance to the zombie threat and while most of it is explained in the final scenes a lot of it could have used some deeper exposition which calls back to the abridged complaint. Yet everything felt consistent. When new aspects are revealed about the zombies it doesn't feel spontaneous but plausibly unexplored.
The action is solid. I believed everyone's character. Due to abridged complaint I would have liked to see more of some characters but that's the way things go with adaptions. The action and the fights were excellent. It doesn't have the overdone acrobatics of Marvel films but a more grounded style that appeared more skillful. The girls whether with guns or swords appear to be well practiced fighters and yet human. The only thing that seemed off was when a character is -- character survives a horde of zombies. In retrospect the explanation makes sense but I kinda feel that the character's situation at that point should have looked different.
yet with all the obvious cuts everything came together well. For a movie about relationships it's big issue whether the relationships feel real. Insta-Love is a HUGE problem in YA Lit and with YA Lit adaptions becoming popular it's posed to become the biggest annoyance trope in films to be released. P&P&Z avoids this.
loading replies
The novel was written by Jane Austen, not Emily Bronte.
