Movie Review - Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Starring Aldren Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Richard LaGravenese

Ever since the inception of the Twilight series and its surprising success, the movie industry has been hoping to find the next teen sensation.  Beautifiul Creatures is not that, despite their efforts to clone the success of that aforementioned horridly acted vampire/werewolf saga.  Not wanting to delve too far away from the supernatural nature of the Kristen Stewart/Robert Pattinson-starring dreck, Beautiful Creatures shifts its attention to witches,  but failing to create any semblance of story for the audience to actually give a damn.

Most of the actors here are better than expected, but they can't help imbue any sense of urgency or heightened sense of emotion into the languid plot which is, if this can be believed, worse than the good vampire vs. bad vampire (vs. werewolf) malarkey that Twilight heaped upon us.  Beautiful Creatures deals with Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert) who, on her sixteenth birthday, will discover her true nature when it's determined if she will be a good witch or a bad witch all the while trying to make things work with her boyfriend Ethan (Aldren Ehrenreich) who, despite her supernatural powers, still loves her.  The problem with the film is that beyond that sentence, nothing else happens in its two hours.  Sure, Emma Thompson and Emmy Rossum come on the scene and try to wreak havoc while Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis try and fight for good, but they're all infinitely better than the material with which they're given to work.  Similarly, Aldren Ehrenreich is much more engaging that Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner ever hoped they could be, but his character's plight of wanting to get out of the Deep South in order to better himself is much too simplistic.

Ultimately, despite the fact that I really wanted to like Beautiful Creatures at least moderately more than the Twilight saga and despite the fact that every actor here (even Alice Englert who isn't all that engaging in the slightest) is better than anyone in the Twilight films (with the exception of Anna Kendrick), this flick was utterly boring.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Dare (2009)

Dare
Starring Emmy Rossum, Zach Gilford, and Ashley Springer
Directed by Adam Salky

Some solid acting abounds in the indie film Dare, but while the high school characters spoke surprisingly realistically (as opposed to that über-intelligent older-than-their-years manner that is often prevalent in films and tv), their emotional arcs seemed slightly forced and oftentimes sudden which, unfortunately, hinders the movie from being a success.

Alexa (Emmy Rossum) is a drama student at the local high school and she longs to become an actress someday. She's quiet, subdued, and looked upon as a "geek" (for lack of a better word). When she gets advice that she needs to "live a little" in order to be able to express herself better on the stage, she seems to flip on a dime, turning from the good girl to the bad girl in a matter of hours.

The guy who gets the benefit of Alexa's newfound sluttiness is Johnny (Zach Gilford), the school ladies' man. Although popular, Johnny has many acquaintances, but very few friends, and his relationship with Alexa is a welcome addition to his life.

The guy who loses out from Alexa's change is her best friend, Ben (Ashley Springer). Friends since grade school, Ben has a very difficult time with Alexa's sexual independence, and it makes him question his own sexuality. One night, Ben takes Johnny home and surprises himself by coming on to Alexa's beau. Even more surprising is that Johnny seems to be amenable to Ben's advances.

Needless to say, complications ensue with this trio of high school students becoming more and more confused about their sexual identities. In the end, all three of these young actors are pretty decent with Zach Gilford's Johnny being the highlight of the trio. He's given the meatiest role and Gilford really does seem to be the best actor of the bunch. Unfortunately, the characters of Alexa and Ben seem to be underdeveloped, causing their life changes to seem silly and forced at times. Additionally, once you move outside of this young trio, all of the actors (including Saturday Night Live alumnus Ana Gasteyer as Ben's mom) are laughably bad.

An interesting tale (set in local Pennsylvania towns, no less), but two unbelievable main characters ruin any promise on display.

The RyMickey Rating: C-