Beastly is a bad movie, of course “I’ve seen worse.” It’s a film that never quite comes together with a laughable story and one-dimensional characters which seem to come straight from a WB television series. The female teen audience I’m sure will eat every bit of this up, for anybody older though, it’s a meandering tale and a film that was only made to cash in on the Twilight craze.
Beastly (2011)
REVIEW NAVIGATION
The Movie | Special Features | Video Quality | Audio Quality | Overall
Genre(s): Fantasy, Romance, Drama
CBS Films | PG13 – 86 min. – $34.95 | June 28, 2011
MOVIE INFO:
Directed by: Daniel Barnz
Writer(s): Alex Flinn (novel); Daniel Barnz (screenplay)
Cast: Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer, Mary-Kate Olsen, Peter Krause, Neil Patrick Harris
Theatrical Release Date: March 4, 2011
DISC INFO:
Features: 2 Featurettes, Deleted Scenes, Music Video, BD-Live
Number of Discs: 1
Audio: English (DTS-HD MA 5.1)
Video: 1080p/Widescreen 2.35
Subtitles: English SDH, English
Region(s): A
THE MOVIE – 2.0/5
Embrace the suck. Not my line, it’s from the movie… really.
Thanks to the wild success of the Twilight films and the “True Blood” television series, Hollywood tries to capitalize on the trend by buying up any script or novel rights and make them into films that will appeal to the same demographics. Earlier this year, Warner released Red Riding Hood which floundered at the box office and then the fledgling studio CBS Films got in on the action with Beastly, a movie that makes those Twilight films look like Shakespeare at times.
The story is about Kyle (ALEX PETTYFER), a rich, snob and all around SOB high school kid who looks good, knows it and uses it to his advantage such as when the movie opens with him running for a Green position at high school even though he couldn’t care less about the environment. He also torments those he and others in the “In” crowd consider being inferior in looks. One of them is Kendra (MARY-KATE OLSEN) who unbeknownst to him and others is in fact a witch. After Kyle has teased her one too many times, she places a curse turning Kyle into a monster and the only way the curse can be lifted is if he can find someone to say they love him within a year or else it will be permanent.
At the behest of his jackass and a-hole father (PETER KRAUSE), Kyle goes into seclusion with his live-in help (LISAGAY HAMILTON) and blind tutor (NEIL PATRICK HARRIS). After some moping around his grand New York townhouse, his time to find somebody to love him grows shorter. But he soon falls for a girl in his high school who he barely noticed though even before his condition he started have some sort of feelings towards her and, lucky for him, Lindy (VANESSA HUDGENS) had a crush on him all that time. Not sure why exactly since he was being a douchebag towards everyone except in his clique and he was hardly a bad boy either.
In any case, through some inane set of circumstances, Lindy comes to live with him because her father is a drug addict and had killed the brother of a dangerous drug dealer who vowed Lindy would pay. So Kyle, who now goes by Hunter, offers to kidnap… err… take her in and protect her. Although she protests, she goes with the flow and drops out of high school. Meanwhile Hunter tries to gain her affections by buying her love with expensive things before getting advice from his fellow housemates and soon the two begin to bond to the point where he reveals his beastly face to which she replies, “I’ve seen worse” and he takes and runs with it.
The two find comfort and companionship with one another but she doesn’t realize that Hunter is in fact Kyle. Will she say those three important words to reverse the curse? Can the jerk change his stripes and find compassion for others? If you think this will end in tragedy, then you’d be giving this film far too much credit.
Beastly obviously is a modern take on “Beauty and the Beast” and also is an adaptation on the novel by Alex Flinn and is squarely targeted at the teen female crowd and for the most part, that group probably will look past the flaws in the story and characters. One of the problems I had with the film was that it was poorly written. From the first scene we get stilted dialogue, leering glances and one-dimensional characters who we’re supposed to care about and root for.
Acting wise, I can’t speak for actor Alex Pettyfer since I haven’t seen his other 2011 film, I Am Number Four, but I do know Vanessa Hudgens is a good actress (see: Bandslam) but her character never quite forms. Similarly, Pettyfer has some semblance of character yet that too isn’t developed enough and in fact he comes across a tad creepy at times and her reaction to him, before she sees his face, doesn’t fit reality. For instance, after she moves into his townhouse, she catches him eavesdropping and he’s wearing a ski mask. She’s cool about it all and in fact accepts his gift of a carton full of her favorite candy. See, in movies that’s charming and weakens her heart to this faceless man but in real life that’s called stalking and a restraining order would be issued.
The film was directed, and adapted, by Daniel Barnz marking only his second feature film after 2008’s Phoebe in Wonderland starring Elle Fanning. I haven’t seen Phoebe but read some good things about it, with Beastly however he doesn’t strike the right chord. He probably stuck fairly close to the novel but I never for once felt anything for any of the characters and once we get to the obvious conclusion, all I could do was shrug and move on. It’s not a terrible film yet it’s also not very good either.
SPECIAL FEATURES – 2.0/5
Alternate Ending (10:13; HD) – This scene is a quite a bit different from the final scene and there were parts I liked (they wrapped up one of the subplots) but the ending itself was even cheesier than what we finally got.
Deleted Scenes (4:47; HD) – Here we get three mundane scenes which would’ve added nothing to the film itself.
A Classic Tale Retold: The Story of Beastly (10:09; HD) – This featurette covers how the film actually got made from the story to casting and the actors and filmmakers give the project plenty of love.
Creating the Perfect Beast (5:07; HD) as you can probably tell shows the make-up process for the beast from concept, make-up tests and the final product.
Music Video (3:04; HD) – We get the video for “Be Mine” by Kristina and the Dolls. It’s not a bad song actually, though my taste in music has been called into question in the past.
BD-Live – Portal to check out other Sony titles and features. ** Blu-ray Exclusive **
Previews – Priest, Soul Surfer, Jumping the Broom, Insidious, Just Go With It and The Back-Up Plan.
VIDEO – 4.5/5
The film is presented in its original 2.35 aspect ratio and the 1080p high-def transfer looks pretty darn good. The black levels are deep without being crushed and the details are very fine. There’s a discernable amount of film grain and noise that only helps the detail levels. With it being a new release, this shouldn’t come as a surprise but I have seen some transfers which were disappointing.
AUDIO – 4.25/5
The disc comes with a good DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless track. There’s not a whole lot of range with this track though dialogue levels, via the center channel, are clear throughout and the inclusion of some music also gives it some depth. The side action like cheering or chatter comes through the rear channels but otherwise it’s fairly limited.
OVERALL – 2.25/5
Overall, Beastly is a bad movie, of course “I’ve seen worse.” It’s a film that never quite comes together with a laughable story and one-dimensional characters which seem to come straight from a WB television series. The female teen audience I’m sure will eat every bit of this up, for anybody older though, it’s a meandering tale and a film that was only made to cash in on the Twilight craze.
Brian Oliver, The Movieman
Published: 06/23/2011
Check out some more screen caps by going to page 2.