Review:
"Beautiful Creatures"
Release Date: Feb. 14, 2013
Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 124 minutes Warm Bodies set the bar high for post-Twilight Saga romances between human and monster. The supernatural love story Beautiful Creatures doesn’t possess Warm Bodies’ knowing wit and endearing leads, but despite an awfully rough start, director Richard LaGravenese’s adaptation of the YA best-seller by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl reveals itself to have a bigger heart than any of the five Twilights. Our young star-crossed lovers are Ethan Wate (Aiden Enhrenreich) and Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert, the daughter of The Piano director Jane Campion). Ethan yearns to leave his tiny hometown of Gatlin, NC. The high school student is tired of the small-minded people who use religion as an excuse to shield themselves from the views and ways of the outside world. The new girl in town, 15-year-old social misfit Lena is immediately shunned because she’s a member of the town’s founding family, which is viewed with suspicion by the locals. Ethan falls hard for Lena, and his budding love for her isn’t diminished when she tells him that she’s a witch. OK, she’s a caster, if you want to be politically correct. What follows next is a race against time to free Lena from a curse that could turn her into one evil witch on her 16th birthday. The first awkward interactions between Ethan and Lena are a struggle to sit through. LaGravenese trots out every possible insulting religious and small-town stereotype to make us hate the locals as much as Ethan and Lena do. Ethan naturally spends most of his time reading transgressive fiction—yes, girls, he’s hunky and sensitive. Lena’s standoffish persona proves grating until she reluctantly lets her guard down. LaGravenese’s job becomes easier when Ethan and Lena finally act on their mutual attraction. He’s able to shift away from the small-town politics to focus on the young lovers’ plight to remain together. Enhrenreich’s outsized personality and Englert’s spunkiness, combined with the chemistry they share, help draw us into Ethan and Lena’s plight. There’s also fun to be had watching Jeremy Iron and Emma Thompson, as, respectively, Lena’s protective uncle and the physical manifestation of her malevolent mom, chew up the quaint scenery as they lock horns for Lena’s soul. Also, a sultry Emmy Rossum steams up Beautiful Creatures as a siren who enjoys toying with the men who can’t take their eyes off her. While Beautiful Creaturesends in such a way that allows us to invest in Ethan and Lena’s future happiness, the climax’s special effects look cheap and cheesy and LaGravenese’s inability to stage action sequences undermines the final confrontation between mother and daughter. Beautiful Creatures inevitably leaves the door open for a sequel, which isn’t a surprise considering there are four books in The Caster Chronicles. Unlike the frigid Twilight Saga, Beautiful Creatures packs enough of an emotional punch to make you wonder what fate has in store for Ethan and Lena Robert Sims Aired: Feb. 14, 2013 Web site: http://beautifulcreatures.warnerbros.com/ |
|