First of all this theater was not at my usual theater. It was at some weird theater downtown and the floor was really sticky and DAMN I had no idea it would have so much hardcore sex. Way to go PJ!
But seriously folks, PJ's The Lovely Bones is not a good movie.
Where to start? It's a total mess. It has so much potential and every here and there you see what he is trying to do and it almost works until the next giant tonal shift or dramatically awkward edit between stories or until the next uber-cheesy line, or dreamy teenage boy eye shot, etc, etc.
I feel terrible saying this, after all, I defended him in a recent thread as "deserving my automatic box office dollars" and so I plunked the cash down for this movie, expecting the brilliance I am normally given in PJ movies. It was not to be. Instead I struggled to hold in laughter at the "emotional parts", my wife didn't bother, she just laughed at every cheesy line and long dreamy eye shots.
It's not all bad, there are those moments I mentioned where things work and it's a solid story and then BAM! it's like a teenage romance writer who has zero experience in making you interested in what they write about takes over and just mercifully kicks you in the junk. The writing is atrocious. It's terrible. The "afterlife" scenes look one of two ways: pretty or silly.
Thats all I can think of right now. I'm very disappointed. I expect better from the man who brought us the masterpiece: Meet the Feebles. This is Heavenly Creatures without character we care about, effects that add to the story rather than detract from it, the bite of a man not afraid to make you uncomfortable in your seat and a giant helping of Twilight-ish teen melodrama layered into a decent murder mystery that is no mystery.
I must watch Heavenly Creatures again to wipe this from my brain.
But seriously folks, PJ's The Lovely Bones is not a good movie.
Where to start? It's a total mess. It has so much potential and every here and there you see what he is trying to do and it almost works until the next giant tonal shift or dramatically awkward edit between stories or until the next uber-cheesy line, or dreamy teenage boy eye shot, etc, etc.
I feel terrible saying this, after all, I defended him in a recent thread as "deserving my automatic box office dollars" and so I plunked the cash down for this movie, expecting the brilliance I am normally given in PJ movies. It was not to be. Instead I struggled to hold in laughter at the "emotional parts", my wife didn't bother, she just laughed at every cheesy line and long dreamy eye shots.
It's not all bad, there are those moments I mentioned where things work and it's a solid story and then BAM! it's like a teenage romance writer who has zero experience in making you interested in what they write about takes over and just mercifully kicks you in the junk. The writing is atrocious. It's terrible. The "afterlife" scenes look one of two ways: pretty or silly.
Thats all I can think of right now. I'm very disappointed. I expect better from the man who brought us the masterpiece: Meet the Feebles. This is Heavenly Creatures without character we care about, effects that add to the story rather than detract from it, the bite of a man not afraid to make you uncomfortable in your seat and a giant helping of Twilight-ish teen melodrama layered into a decent murder mystery that is no mystery.
I must watch Heavenly Creatures again to wipe this from my brain.
