First things first: I saw a preview for Beastly on this movie and now I am officially intrigued. I remember seeing it in the Fandango list for what was coming out this summer, but all I noticed was Vanessa Hudgens and some really strange looking guy. Well what a bad first impression for such an interesting movie! Let’s start afresh with this trailer (watch it for yourself on the Beastly website).
First, this gloriously gorgeous guy shows up on screen (Alex Pettyfer). He’s brimming with charisma and you can just tell he’s going to be a winning character. Then he meets Vanessa Hudgens and she’s not interested and you can tell he’s intrigued by this. Enter one of the Olsen twins (Mary-Kate according to IMDB) as a totally creepy witch (although can I be honest for one second? She looked almost normal even though it was clear she was supposed to be slightly grotesque. Is it weird that those two are so creepy that dark eye make-up and evil eyes look normal?). She transfigures the gorgeous guy’s skin into a mottled travesty of what it was before, and vows that if he hasn’t found love in a year, he’ll remain that way forever. A true Beauty and the Beast story for modern times! Woot! And I mean for modern times—he sees after he disappears from school that everyone is commenting on social networking that they are glad he’s gone, and he feels the sting of realizing everyone hated him all along. Then flash to him saving Vanessa Hudgens’s life and you can tell they are going to fall in love. At one point he asks Evil Olsen for more time and she denies him, but this being a tale of Beauty and the Beast, it has to work out well in the end. I’m super excited to see it! Coming out July 30, 2010. Yay!
Let’s just say I was more impressed by that trailer than I was by The Back-Up Plan. I know, how sad, right! I had such high hopes. I enjoyed Jennifer Lopez, honestly, I did. And Alex O’Loughlin is appropriately handsome. He just felt too cookie cutter, too romantic-comedy-love-interest. It doesn’t take much to impress me, let’s be honest, and I’m a sucker for romantic lines, but this was overly cheesy. They get into the same cab, and argue, and then it’s clear that he’s smitten. Just like that? Really? She sees him in the Farmer’s Market and he claims that she must be following him. I was like, okay, it’s one thing to make that joke, but to act like you genuinely believe that she followed you there? That seems unlikely. Then he just randomly shows up at a show she’s hosting at her store, and he demands to take her to dinner and then walk her home. Sure it would be flattering to have a guy pursue you that persistently, but why would he? She was very clear from the beginning that she wasn’t at all interested (in fact, they met on her way out of her artificial insemination appointment—she was definitely planning her life without a man, so she didn’t see any room for him in her future). I just felt that was a little too much. Every girl would love to be pursued that intently by the man of her dreams, but what guy would really go to all that trouble? You can tell the script is written by a woman.
I’ve never seen Alex O’Loughlin in a movie before, so I don’t know how his acting is. I actually felt bad for the guy. I suspect he would have been absolutely charming with a better script, but he came off as insincere and inexplicably obsessed with JLo. They have sex on like their 3rd date, during which he says he doesn’t want kids, and then she admits she’s pregnant. Then he still wants to be with her. Even after they discover there’s more than one on the way. I just don’t understand where the commitment is coming from, you know?
It was the same problem I had with Nicholas Sparks’s Dear John. By all means, show me a love that will last through the ages no matter what happens—I like to think that I have that very kind of love with my husband, so I fall right into the stories and emerge giggling like a little girl. But you have to show me that there’s a reason it’s there. In Dear John, they knew each other for 2 weeks and suddenly they were promising to stay together through his like 2 years of being in the Middle East after 9/11. Um, yeah right. I’m sorry, but there’s no way. I’ve been in a long distance military relationship—if you don’t have a strong foundation, there’s no reason to put up with that shit, you know? NO WAY. Not gonna happen.
So flash forward to The Back-Up Plan, and we’ve got that same kind of mindless devotion. Stan (Alex O’Loughlin) sees Zoe (JLo) in a cab, decides he apparently wants to spend the rest of his life with her in that one moment, and then follows her around like a lovesick puppy the rest of the movie. I mean, he’s more manly than that, but he spouts an awful lot of romantic lines for someone that barely knows this woman. Plus after just one or two weeks of knowing each other—and 3 dates—she tells him she’s pregnant with some stranger’s child and he just takes it. Sure he freaks out a little at first, but within 12 hours he’s cool with it and ready to make their relationship work. She’s the one who’s always pulling away. He’s constantly saying all these ridiculous lines about how he’s not going to leave and she’s the most wonderful thing ever and blah blah blah, and she’s all like, “I don’t need you and I know you’re going to leave anyway so just do it now.” She does that to him like 4 times and he just spouts some nonsense back every time.
Like I said, I’m all for sticking-through-it-all love. Having a baby can be enormously stressful (not that I would know personally, but I could certainly imagine), and it’s not for the faint of heart. Especially the types that have only been in a relationship for a couple of weeks and don’t even want kids to begin with. That’s when you move on and find someone else. Sure she’s pretty and seems to be very funny and genuine, but when she’s carrying some other stranger’s baby, you have no obligation to have a 4th date. Seriously.
I chalk this failure to empathize with the romantic love interest to the fact that the script was written by a woman. Let’s be fair, I love scripts written by women because they generally know just what I want to see in a movie. And Nora Ephron is one example of a woman who has a whole slew of amazing romances on her resume (You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally). And cheesy, unrealistic romances are not just limited to women—I just mentioned Nicholas Sparks as a prime example. I’ve never seen any of his other movies and more importantly, I’ve never read any of his books (movie adaptations are rarely as good as the books, so I can’t judge him as an author). However, Dear John was just terrible. I mean, the acting was good, and it was pretty, and you sort of felt for the characters, but I didn’t believe it. Same as I didn’t believe The Back-Up Plan.
I mentioned that I enjoyed JLo in this movie. She was adorable yet professional and she fit the part very well. Plus she’s gorgeous. That helps. :) I also know she can relate to being pregnant since she has her own kids, so I felt that her portrayal was very genuine. Plus, a girly girl can easily pull of girly lines written in a girly script. It was just Alex O’Loughlin who tanked. And as I said, I don’t think it was his acting—he played his part well, I just think the part was very poorly written. Too many stupid lines (and that from me, the princess of Neverland-sized expectations). That was sad.
Melissa McCarthy was pleasantly amusing as the leader of the Single, Mothers, and PROUD! group. I loved her as Sookie in Gilmore Girls, so of course I enjoyed her. Still, her part felt like it was a gimmick for laughs. The whole group seemed like a gimmick for laughs. Like the mother breastfeeding her 3yo. I’ve read that it’s good to breastfeed until 7 years old, which I think is a little on the crazy side, but 3yo is well inside that suggestion. Not that I would ever do that. I would be totally creeped out to see someone with a child that large on their breast, which was what they were counting on in the movie, but I know the medical benefits so I can’t diss it. Perhaps a less baby-oriented audience would get the appropriate horror reaction. It just felt awkward to me.
One of the things I did enjoy from this movie was watching the baby stuff. Not that there’s actually a lot of it. They go shopping a few times, so you get to see a little bit of it. I’ll admit that I get an email from BabySteals.com every morning just so I can look at baby stuff every day, even though I have a set plan not to get pregnant before at least February 2012 (less than 22 months! lol). Thanks Navy on that one. So of course seeing strollers and little baby clothes makes me happy, but they didn’t go into that much. They didn’t even show a single crib that I remember (possibly after the babies were born, but the cribs were still on the fringes of the camera).
What I remember more was how GD (which is how I like to shorten goddamn when I feel bad for saying it) fit Jennifer Lopez was. Especially just recovering from a real twin pregnancy herself, she looks AMAZING. I mean, I guess it’s been a couple of years ago, but still, she looks great. It’s quite inspiring for a weight loss program to spend 2 hours watching such a lovely woman parading across the screen. Alex O’Loughlin was easy on the eyes, but he was no Hugh Dancy (his role as Luke Brandon in Confessions of a Shopaholic makes me melt) or Patrick Dempsey (Robert in Enchanted is another one of those I-can’t-stop-grinning-like-an-idiot-because-he’s-so-adorable kind of guys). As I said, I think it had more to do with his failure as an attractive character that ruined his attraction as a guy. He looks good shirtless, but I’m still not impressed. And can I just say that referencing Enchanted in this review just proves how much I like adorable and cheesy romance movies? But it’s got to be believable, and that’s where this movie fails.
I’m sure this movie will do tolerably well simply because it’s the only decent romantic comedy out right now. Date Night is out, but that appears to be more comedy than romance to me (I’ve not seen it, so I can’t really judge). Other than that there’s no real romantic comedy out. I don’t know how the critics reviewed it, but I say it will still do fine at the box office. Would I highly recommend going to see it? Probably not. Is it better than going to see Clash of the Titans on your date? Yes, certainly (although that movie has its own merit if you’re looking for a historical-ish Greek action movie lol). For amusing me for 2 hours without blowing me away, I give it 2 ponies.
Rating (out of 5 rainbows and ponies): 2 ponies
Conclusion: HAPPY ENDING
-PrincessM
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