vs. 
Beastly is a modern take on the Beauty and the Beast tale. A pretty, popular, and terribly vain young man is made to look ghastly by a sorceress and only true love (by a brunette) can break the spell.
This is what love looks like, right guys?
The trailer opens with the words "Beautiful people get it better." Then why are you playing this part Alex Pettyfer? If someone loves this movie does that break your spell of only doing shitty movies (I Am Number 4, anyone?)?
Look! It's Will Ferrell in Zoolander!
Beautiful, blond Pettyfer is made to look like an awesome punk rocker by one of the Olsen sisters (I still can't tell them apart, although I always suspected they dabbled in witchcraft [How else did New York Minute get made?].) and so he becomes a recluse to be tutored by a blind Neil Patrick Harris.
But how the fuck can he play darts??!
Don't get me wrong, I love NPH, but apparently blind to him also means deaf given the slow cadence of his dialogue. But it's okay, because NPH can see how awesome Pettyfer is (funny, I didn't get that out of the trailer. Since his personality sucked, too). I contemplated awarding NPH the "What-The-Fuck-Is-He-Doing-In-This-Movie" award, but then I remembered that twin babies are expensive. He's not the only one who can see Pettyfer's inner beauty... It's that bitch from High School Musical! With nothing better to do and the desire for ANOTHER green room, Hudgens is here...trying to be a star... again. Move the bangs aside, sweetie, and embrace your lack of star quality. Just. Stop. You can see how beautiful Pettyfer is, but you can't see how dismal your career is?
It's supposed to be a sweeping Twilight romance, but really its a jumbled modernistic montage of "ugly" Alex Pettyfer looking past Vanessa Hudgen's bangs into her big, vacant eyes. I get no sense of her character what-so-ever. And as I Am Number Four and Twilight taught us, the movie needs to be from the normal girl's point of view, not the supernatural freak. If you haven't guessed it, this is the movie I'm looking forward to THE LEAST. I frankly can't even believe I sat through the trailer three times to write this.
Stay home and watch the good version
My what an exciting trailer you have.... Red Riding Hood.
And my what big eyes you have... OMG guys, she's the wolf.
Less that 15 seconds in and I'm already way more excited about this movie. The vacant glances of Beastly are replaced with a, quite literal, carnivorous love affair. Seyfried's Little Red is big eyed and all grown up. She's fooling around with the woodsman, when her hand in marriage is promised to another. Love triangles did director Catherine Hardwicke well before, (cough, Twilight, cough) and if you're going to try and tap into that fan base, you might as well go back to the source.
They've got more chemistry in this photograph than
Hudgens and Pettyfer have in their entire movie.
While Seyfried is running around with good old fashioned lust (which I know she can play given her stellar performance as the over-sexualized title character in Chloe.) there is another in the village with blood lust! A werewolf, it turns out. And now we're officially in a whole different world than the original little red riding hood. I imagine Grandma will play into this somehow, but the real mystery is not how little red escapes the wolf, but rather- who the wolf is.
Gary Oldman in a dapper purple outfit is hell bent on finding out, and he knows Seyfried knows. It's probably someone she's fucking... but which one?
Red Riding Hood does several things right, where Beastly goes wrong. First, they cast talented actors. Its amazing what Gary Oldman can do for a movie, and I've never seen Amanda Seyfried in something where she was bad. Second, it's got a style. It's beautiful and bright and they stick to that bright but Gothic style through and through. Seyfried is sure to be the only one with red, but the purple, the blue, the yellow all pop just as much. I've always said that Amanda Seyfried has a face for a Tim Burton movie, and this looks like its about as close as she'll get for now. Third, its from HER point of view. This is where Twilight succeeded and I Am Number 4 failed. If you're going to cater to the teen girl, by all means, make your character a teen girl.
A great soundtrack, fast cuts, and a story that I am familiar with (but did not grow up on in a superior animated form) all help to make Red Riding Hood my choice for fangirl storybook romance.
1 comment:
They are making a new snow white movie as well with julia roberts as the evil queen. there is going to be a ton of fairytale movies coming out in the next few years.
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