Long in development, underwhelming public response, and a disappointment. Some bits are quite good - it looks stylish, nice costumes and make up, etc - but it never works.
Part of this are the cast which is surprisingly uniformly bland - full of pretty young things that look like they've stepped out of drama school. England is full of great actors steeped in Austen lore but Burr Steers (or whoever is responsible) has peopled his film with bland nothings - the Bennett girls, for instance, are all pretty and that's it. They lack personality and spark. The young men are pretty and bland too. Sam Riley and Lily James are poor leads.
Part of it is the zombie stuff. We are so familiar with zombies now that the filmmakers really needed to come up with something fresh and/or interesting - they've failed to do so. There should have - the concept is strong enough - but all the zombie attacks are filmed in lazy perfunctory style that we've seen heaps of times before. It feels like the same old zombie attacks - munching brains, our heroes performing superhuman efforts of zombie fighting. Sure they spout the words but you never get a sense that anyone has a genuine feel for the period or Austen or even zombies. It occasionally comes to life - it's not awful - just dull.
No comments:
Post a Comment