By Taylor Jensen/entertainment editor
After watching Beautiful Creatures, I not only want my money back, I want a time machine so I can prevent its existence.
Supernatural romances are at the height of their popularity. The Twilight series has set the stage for film failures like Beastly and Red Riding Hood and created an entertainment void that must constantly be filled with nonsensical love stories that have more to do with superficial fantasy than actual love.
Beautiful Creatures is based on the novel written by authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl at the request of Stohl’s teenage daughters who were supposedly tired of sparkling vampires and hunk-of-meat werewolves.
The film, as a result, tells the story of young Ethan (played by a constantly disheveled Alden Ehrenreich) who is just plum put out with his hometown of Gatlin, S.C., and longs for the freedom graduation will deliver. He instead settles for new girl Lena (Alice Englert), a caster whose fate will be decided on her 16th birthday when she either turns light or dark. Yeah. Lena prefers the term caster instead of witch, you know, because she is sophisticated.
I did sympathize with Ethan, however, because after two hours, I also couldn’t wait to get the hell out of Gatlin.
This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I honestly find it hard to summon one positive note besides the fact that I laughed at it, not with it. You see, the directing, writing, special effects, acting, costumes and sound all work together to make Beautiful Creatures what it is: perfectly awful.
Despite the help of incredible actors like Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis and Emma Thompson, Beautiful Creatures is overflowing with atrocious Southern idioms, uninspired special effects, factual errors, contradictions, blatant stereotypes and awkward moments.
There is no chemistry or passion between the male and female leads, whose actual facial emotions change twice. I counted.
Nothing is ever explained, nothing is truly experienced, so ultimately, nothing is accomplished. When you’re not laughing, you’re bored. It leaves the viewer wondering when the blessed end will arrive and if Irons will ever run out of neck scarves.
These are the consequences when we let teenage girls call the shots. This is what happens when movies and literature accommodate readers and ticket sales instead of the other way around. It was nice seeing Taylor Lautner’s abs, but for God’s sake, let’s take back the movies.
Final take: If I wanted to see teenage couples awkwardly attack each other’s faces, I would go to the mall.
Those who would enjoy it: Mindless, but innocent teenage girls who have become slaves to the aftermath of Twilight.
