sapien 02/19/2013 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

Rating of
2.5/4 

I don't like everything this movie said about slavery. And, I don't like everything it said about religion. But then again, I rarely like either of those things in movies. What I did like was the plot and the characters. Oh, and it should be noted that I have not read the book.

Paula 02/18/2013 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

I saw the previews for the movie so read the book. That may have been my first mistake. The book gave the reader a solid story. Though all that is on the page rarely makes it to the screen, this film missed the target. It felt like they picked scenes that they thought would make the biggest splash and pieced them together in a mash that left out vital information. Some characters were left out, others changed and others still, seemed to have no reason for existing. It was truly a disappointment.

In regards to Tiffany Boone as Savannah Snow and combining Ama into Lilian:

Lets get this out of the way: I am not racist in the least and I think she's a lovely girl and probably a decent actress, but it makes absolutely no sense for her to be playing this part in the "Beautiful Creatures" movie. These books and this movie are set in a very southern, mostly white, town with small minded townspeople. She's playing the part of Savannah Snow: a DAR debutante, of a long line of DAR debutantes, who's family was one of the founding families of this town. The DAR is an all white, extremely exclusive, southern sorority of women who spend all their time tracing family origins to the American Revolution. Her friends are the daughters of her mother's friends the way her mother's friends were the daughters of her grandmother's friends, and so on and so on. When it comes down to these townspeople, the point is that things stay the same in this town. People keep there mentality the same as much as they can down the generations. So no matter how wrong or ugly it is, there is no way on earth this character could ever be someone of color. The same way the "Ama" character could never be white.

I don't agree with this mentality, but there's a point to it in these books. They're watering it down and mainstreaming it. It feels like they chose a black actress just to say, "Hey! These books might have bigoted, small minded townspeople, but this is Hollywood, and we don't want any of that! So lets remove any element that might not go over well with the public [Even though this is a hugely popular book series and the public already knows what this fictional town is like]... Someone get me a pretty token black girl for this part here... yes that will work AND pull in the black teens. Oh no, we can't show any truly southern Creole women, it would make the African American community look bad [completely disregarding the traditions and great history of those women because its not pc]. Lets combine that character with our super smart professor librarian... yeah, that looks better and is cheaper! Now we've never lived or even been to the South other than to shoot movies, but this seems spot on!" --_--

Other Points:

Yes, it was incredibly lazy not to give the lead actress green contacts, dye her hair black and curl it properly.

Why did they make Link/Thomas Mann's character a hipster?  Were they really desperate to be "hip" even though a the youth this town wouldn't have anything close to a hippy/hipster?  Thomas Mann would have made an excellent punk kid.

I refuse to judge the cast until I see the movie.  No matter the script, I expect to see good acting.  The best actors can make the most of a crappy script/set/etc.  I'll post a full review after I see it.  Happy opening night Beautiful Creatures ;)