March Movie #1: Beastly

Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens, Mary-Kate Olsen, Neil Patrick Harris, Peter Krause
Directed By: Daniel Barnz
Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

Beastly is a modern take on Beauty and the Beast. When Kyle Kingson (played by Pettyfer) annoys a witch (played by Olsen) with his ego and his "beauty rules and ugly drools" motto, she places a curse on him. He transforms from a handsome, spoiled rich kid to a hideously scarred, self-pitying rich kid. He has to find someone to love him within a year or else he'll stay ugly for the rest of his life.

Um, wow. This movie was bad. Very, very, very bad. So bad that it took me a long, long time to put two and two together - that this movie was twist on Beauty and the Beast. The acting was atrocious. Normally I just say "bad" but this was so many grades below bad. The script was an abomination. The directing was laughable. It was like a bad high school play, written by the choir director who always had dreams of writing for the silver screen and acted by kids who are just using it as a way to get out of detention. There was no real chemistry between any of the characters let alone Lindy (played by Hudgens) and Hunter/Kyle (played by Pettyfer).  Vanessa Hudgens couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag even if you left the bag wide open with a flashing neon sign pointing to that opening. I think she ties with Scarlet Johansson with worst actress ever. Ever. The only tolerable moments were those that contained Neil Patrick Harris who plays the blind tutor. I wonder if he knew how truly horrible the rest of the movie was. I think I saw him cringe a couple of times.

Aside from the bad acting (atrocious acting), many of the plot points just didn't work. First of all, we just didn't get to see enough of Kyle being obnoxious to truly understand why the witch cursed him. The scene at the party didn't really seem to bother her nor was it that horrible a prank. I kept waiting for the Carrie pigs-blood version of an "I'm better than you" rant scene but it never came. I suppose Kyle was a jerk but it didn't seem enough to get cursed over. I'm sure there were hundreds of guys just like him at that high school. It screamed "pretty people rule." It wasn't just Kyle.

The time frame seemed to whiz by. Two weeks in a blink of an eye; five months in another blink of an eye. If Kyle was so devoted to his looks, you'd think he wouldn't waste a minute of his ugly imprisoned year. He'd want to do everything in his power to become pretty again. And a year is plenty of time to get a high school girl to fall in love; seven months is, too.

Another implausible plot point - the father giving his daughter to the scarred, heavily tattooed boy who witnessed him murder another man. And if he thought that scarred, heavily tattooed boy could protect his daughter from the drug dealer who vowed revenge, taking her himself to Hunter/Kyle's house seemed ridiculous. If he didn't want the drug dealer to know where his daughter was, he probably shouldn't know where she was, either (because if push came to shove, I'm sure he'd sell her hiding spot out).

And another implausible point - the greenhouse. Um, you don't build a dwelling one complete wall at a time... complete with windows. You build the framework first and once you have the walls attached to the framework, you put the windows in. I know he made it up as he went along because he couldn't figure out the instructions but surely he's seen construction? And what he built was not a greenhouse.

And finally, the most implausible point of them all - the transformation back to Kyle. The final rose had bloomed in his tattoo... (which wasn't fully at a year because he was cursed at night and this was in the afternoon). If magical path cannot be altered, then the events that transpired were out of order for them to lead to his transformation. Not that I'm giving anything away. You know the story of Beauty and the Beast. You know what happens in this movie. And it ends without drama, so unlike Beauty and the Beast. It ends without fanfare. It ends without an overwhelming feeling that these two people have found true love. Or are even in love.

The best parts of this movie are Neil Patrick Harris. He's funny. He's got some great lines and some scene stealing bits. I loved the story about the elephants. It was insanely sweet. It was my favorite moment of the movie. And it was nice to see Mary-Kate Olsen acting again, all grown up. I liked her quirkiness. She added an interesting element to this movie... even though the spell she placed over Kyle was the lamest spell in magical history. Was that even a spell? What was that?

Go see this movie... if you need something to bore you to tears. I thought about just getting up and walking out many, many, many times. It was an abomination to movies. It shouldn't even be called a movie. Bad. So very bad. And, unfortunately, my assessment of Alex Pettyfer's acting ability is not complete (see the review of I Am Number Four). I refuse to count this movie or give it another thought. Ugh.