Movie Review: Beastly
Movie reviews sponsored by Apollo Cinemas
Directed: Daniel Barnz
Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens, Mary Kate Olsen
A few quick warnings before entering a screening of Beastly:
1) Make sure you are not in the company of anybody of the male persuasion, to make them sit through one and half hours of teen schmaltz may be regarded as a minor human rights violation
2) Try and cover your eyes and block your ears whenever Mary Kate Olsen appears. Her acting style may not be believable but it may cause your brain to implode
As you are now well warned I will move onto the plot, a modern re-telling of the Beauty And The Beast which sees Alex Pettyfer transformed by Mary Kate Olsen from blonde and beautiful, to bald and veiny. At least until he is able to secure the love of Vanessa Hudgens.
As mentioned, Beastly is teen girl territory and suffers from an overdose of romantic pap to such an extent it may leave the young and weak of knee swooning. If you are of a more cynical disposition, just stay clear all together.
The leads do what they can with this and even seem to be enjoying themselves with the cliché-ridden script, which might go to explain why their central relationship is the only viable element of the film.
As for Mary Kate Olsen’s witch, aside from the casting, the character seems out of place in the modern setting, which boasts no hint of magic or the supernatural to make Pettyfer's curse seem believable.
The support characters, despite some of their sob story backgrounds - a blind tutor and a Jamaican maid trying to attain green cards for her children and the talents of Neil Patrick Harris and Lisa Gay Hamilton - remain underwritten.
Beastly does not live up entirely to its name, being as it is middle of the road teen romance and I’m sure will find an audience with anybody with a marshmallow heart.
Score: 2/5
1 Comment – Post a comment
Stormer007
Commented 12 months ago - 3rd May 2011 - 11:57am
Damn, now I have to write my own review in response to this, becuase I quite liked it....