‘Beautiful Creatures’ is flawed but fun

Beautiful Creatures is a movie that grows on you, despite its imperfections.

Based on the young adult novel of the same name by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, Beautiful Creatures is a supernatural romance set in the American south.

Although the film has plenty of problems, the tenacity of its world building, combined with some truly excellent performances, makes watching it an enjoyable experience, even for those not particularly enamored with its genre.

The movie focuses on two characters, Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) and Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert).

Ethan is a restless high school junior who loves reading banned books and dreams of leaving the small town of Gatlin, S.C. Lena is the new girl in school with a secret: She’s a caster, a person with magical powers, and on her 16th birthday, she, like all other female casters, will be claimed for either the light or the dark.

Ethan and Lena are drawn to each other and soon begin a relationship, which sets into motion events that will have a deep impact on the both of them and possibly even the world.

Watching Beautiful Creatures was the exact opposite experience of watching A Good Day to Die Hard. While A Good Day to Die Hard starts out well, only to spiral down into mediocrity, Beautiful Creatures begins atrociously and then proceeds to slowly become a better movie.

Seriously, the first 20 minutes of Beautiful Creatures are REALLY bad.

High school students who don’t look anywhere near high school age, awful southern accents, a poorly realized caricature of a small town and forced examples of independent thought all add up to a pretty hideous first impression. And then Jeremy Irons shows up.

Now, Irons wouldn’t be the first good actor to appear in a bad movie, but he isn’t phoning it in in Beautiful Creatures. No, this is the real deal genuine article Jeremy Irons, and as Lena’s uncle, Macon Ravenwood, he is fantastic.

Shortly thereafter, Emma Thompson shows up as the movie’s chief villain, Sarafine, and knocks it out of the park; Emmy Rossum enters the picture as Lena’s sexy evil cousin; and suddenly, this film actually starts getting good.

It also helps that, while Ehrenreich and Englert’s performances are pretty flat on there own, together they have fairly good chemistry. In turn, they also seem to get buoyed by the film’s acting powerhouses, particularly Irons, and their characters become more compelling and relatable as the movie goes on.

At the same time, Beautiful Creatures doesn’t escape the general weirdness that seems to come along with much of the supernatural romance genre.

While I consider myself a feminist, I don’t think of myself as a particularly dedicated one, especially on the cultural criticism front. Still, when a major plot point involves female casters being supernaturally claimed for either good or evil based on their true nature, and regardless of their feelings on the matter, I have to raise an eyebrow. And while the relationship dynamic between Lena and Ethan is basically healthy, there were a few scenes that gave me pause.

All that being said, I suspect fans of the book will enjoy Beautiful Creatures quite a bit, as a lot of effort was put into telling the characters’ stories and detailing the world in which they live.

Indeed, the world building is the second major thing that Beautiful Creatures has going for it. Instead of just haphazardly throwing in details about the magical universe where the film takes place, the movie actually takes the time to flesh things out and clearly define the social and supernatural forces acting on the characters.

This makes the movie a far more engaging experience than it ought to be, especially for those unfamiliar, as I am, with the series lore.

Beautiful Creatures is a flawed film, but at the end of the day, it won me over. If you have a yen to see a movie of the supernatural or teenage romance variety, this will certainly do the trick.

On the other hand, if your friends or significant other drag you to see this movie, you should still have a good time. You’ll just have to wait 20 minutes first.

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on March 14, 2013. Filed under Arts and Entertainment,Columns,Movie Reviews,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry