{Movie Review} Movie Monday #9: Beautiful Creatures

We all delight in seeing our favorite books brought to life on the big screen.  We cringe at casting.  We scoff at release dates.  All the while, we're gearing up to see if the director's vision lives up to the world we've conceived in our own imaginations.  Sometimes it does...and sometimes it doesn't.  We could lament the movies that don't measure up, or we could return to the books for a re-read, possibly with a slightly different mind-set.  All's fair when it comes to artistic vision, right?




This week, I'd like to feature:

Title: Beautiful Creatures
Director: Richard LaGravenese
Stars: Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Emmy Rossum
Release date: February 13, 2013
Based on: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Ethan longs to escape his small Southern town. He meets a mysterious new girl, Lena. Together, they uncover dark secrets about their respective families, their history and their town.

I originally featured this movie back in December, but I didn't get around to seeing it in the theater.  Instead, I waited until I was sick and there was nothing on TV.  This movie was up on On Demand a week or two ago, and I coerced the hubby into watching it with me since I was all pitiful and sickly.  ;0)

As I stated in my previous post, I have not read Beautiful Creatures.  Oh, I started the audiobook for it, but I never made it past the first 25%.  The narrators weren't bad or anything...the story was just so slow.  Others have told me to give it a chance, that it does pick up.  We'll see.

The movie, however, was not nearly as disappointing, though I know many would be inclined to disagree.  But I think this is one of those cases where not having read the book really helped.  It was all fairly predictable, but the movie was visually stunning, and so I could look past that.  (I can overlook a lot of things for the pretty.)

I can see why so many are drawn to this story.  I rather liked it after it was condensed from a nearly 18 hour audiobook to a two hour movie.  But I can also see why some would be unhappy with what was cut from the book to make it into a movie.  I mean, there had to be an awful lot cut to make the movie's running time 1/9th of the length of the audiobook.

Still, I enjoyed myself.  I found it a bit cheesy and some of the acting suffered from bad dialogue.  But the effects weren't totally overdone.  Sounds like they're not going to adapt the rest of the series, though, so I'm glad with how this one ended.  Yeah, it wasn't the happiest of endings, but I've got enough closure, and that's what I need from an ending.

After it was over, the hubs said, "It was pretty good."  I said, "It was oookay."  He asked why I didn't like it more, and I told him it was because of the cheese.  Cheese makes some movies even better while it breaks others.

Rating:   1/2





Have you read the book and/or seen the movie yet?  I'd love to hear your thoughts!