It is
with my head hung low that we now live in a world where the phrase
“Post-Twilight” is a legitimate and descriptive genre qualifier. Ever since
those sparkly mopes have hit the shelves of Barns and Nobel, with their
peculiar brand of preteen chastity-porn, or graced our screens with their
anemic pouting, we have seen a hailstorm of young-adult, paranormal romance,
both in film and literature. Some have been very, very bad (“Red Riding Hood”)
and some have been moderately acceptable (“Warm Bodies”). While the formula set for this demographic
may be achingly evident, I have to say that “Beautiful Creatures” was
surprisingly tolerable.
Not
unlike “Twilight”, this story centers on a young romance between a small town
outsider and a supernatural outcast, although in this we have a gender
reversal. Alden Ehrenreich plays Ethan Wate, a literate pseudo-beatnik in a small
southern town ruled by the ignorant minds of religious zealots. To rebel
against his peers he reads banned books like “Slaughterhouse Five” and “On the
Road”, all while remaining somewhat popular because of his dashing good looks. When
he meets the new-girl, Lena (Alice Englert), he is then further ostracized
because everyone suspects her family of being Satanists—it turns out, their
just witches (or Casters, as they prefer). Some of them are good like her uncle
(Jeremy Irons) and some of them are evil like her mother (Emma Thompson). With
her 16th birthday is coming up, she is set to be put on a path of
good or evil by the moon of the winter solstice. Making things worse, a dark
prophecy says that if she falls in love with a mortal, she be swingin closer to
the dark side.
I know
what you’re thinking...
“Yay, it
sounds like “Twilight” AND “Harry Potter”. SQUEEEEE!!!”
No. Not
YOU. I’m talking to the grumpy
alternative kid behind you. You’re thinking, “Yuck, it sounds like “Twilight
AND “Harry Potter”. Booooo!” And to you I say yes, yes it does. But hear me out
when I say, despite everything that fails in this movie, I was genuinely
charmed (no pun intended) by much of it. The two lead characters are pretty
well drawn and I found the actors who play them to be both charismatic and likable. They have interesting conversations, they
have their minds on higher activities (college, destiny, literature), and
unlike the vegan vamps in those other movies, they don’t frump around and feel
sorry for themselves; they have a sense of humor and they take action when they
need to. I liked these kids and I rooted
for them.
While I
could have sat back and watched an amiable little romantic comedy about these two
teens thumbing their intellectual noses at the luddites in their town,
eventually its plot had to start. After the forty minute mark, the exposition
train pulls into the station and that’s things start to fall apart. We get
hammy performances from otherwise-talented, Hollywood vets—Jeremy Irons turning
in a pathetically inept, muddled, southern accent, and Emma Thompson in a sad
state of scene-devouring hysteria—prophecies have to be fulfilled, shoddy CGI
begins to fill every frame and the two main characters (that are frankly better
than this movie) are dragged from one fantasy cliché to another, until they
have to arrive at their eventual, sub-Potter, magical showdown.
Okay,
so at best “Beautiful Creatures” is a mixed bag and its highs and really high
and its lows are really low. Because I am the type of person who is more interested
in characters than I am plot, I could wade through the cheesy supernatural
romance stuff for those warm moments of catchy dialogue and it’s surprisingly
progressive message about taking control of your own destiny. Regrettably,
because of what it is, it can never be great, but even with so much stacked
against it (and that stuff is considerable)I felt sorry for the good movie at
its first day of school, embarrassingly
trying and fit into its awkward genre clothes.
Grade: C
Originally Published in The Basic Alternative/March-2013
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