Review: Beautiful Creatures (2013) is *almost* fantastic.

Beautiful Creatures

2013
129 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

So much of Beautiful Creatures (trailer/banner) is so unexpectedly terrific that it's almost a tragedy when the picture eventually falls victim to its own plot.  For the 80-minutes or so, the film is warmly engaging, alternating between scenery-chewing camp from the adults and genuinely emotional pathos from the kids, anchored by fine acting and surprisingly clever and authentic dialogue throughout.  The romantic leads (Alice Englert and Alden Ehrenreich) have undeniable charm and chemistry while the likes of Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson relish the inherently goofy nature of this material while still pulling back when required.  The film paints an evocative picture of life in a dead-end fundamentalist American small town and is unapologetic about depicting some unpleasant sides of religious fundamentalism.  But while the film outright soars when  it focuses on character and human interaction, it cannot withstand the weight of its own overly contrived mythology.  The deeper the film gets into its central conflict the more of a mechanical plot exercise it becomes.  So superb is the first 2/3 of Beautiful Creatures that I felt genuine disappointment when the film flubbed the landing, ending itself in the territory of merely 'very good'.

Beautiful Creatures gets a new poster, a new release date, and a new plot-heavy second trailer.

What's interesting about this second look at what is arguably the first of the new wave of 'next Twilight/Hunger Games' franchise-starters is that it sells itself as a story specifically centered on a young girl in the South who is fought over as a result of her supernatural powers and her would-be destiny.  When I wrote about the wave of female-centric young-lit adaptations a couple months ago, I was informed that this movie, or at least the book that it's based on, is actually told from the boy's point-of-view.  You wouldn't know it from this trailer.  And I would argue that it is almost noteworthy that Warner Bros. is trying to trick audiences into thinking that it's a female-pov story.  Anyway, marketing gimmicks aside, this still looks like a solid piece of supernatural hokum.  Come what may, the cast (Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum) should be more than enough to do the heavy lifting if the young kids (Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert) can't pick up the slack (not presuming they can't of course, Ehrenreich was fine in Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro).  The "big" news is that it's been moved one day up to February 14th, and it's clear that Warner Bros. wants this to be the date-movie of choice for those otherwise uninterested in yet-another Die Hard film.  Will it work?  Depending on how cheap this one was, it may not matter.  Valentine's Day/President's Day weekend is a holiday weekend where a number of big films can flourish alongside each other (witness 2010, where Valentine's Day, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and The Wolfman all opened to over $30 million).  Anyway, Beautiful Creatures opens on February 14, 2013.  As always, we'll see. If you have any thoughts on the matter, do share them below...

Scott Mendelson