THE first adaptation of a popular US series of young adult books, Beautiful Creatures is a straight up attempt to try and keep Twilight fans coming to the movies in spite of the end of that appalling and horribly popular blight on the history of cinema.
Director: Richard La Gravenese
Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum.
Ethan Wate (Ehrenreich) is a young man who reads Kerouac, Vonnegut and Bukowski while dreaming of a day when he can escape the confines of his boring life in a small Southern town and move to New York. Enter mysterious new girl Lena (Englert) who is the niece of local rich eccentric Macon Ravenwood (Irons) and who sends Ethan’s heart beating full of adolescent love. As the two “star- crossed lovers” get closer, Ethan learns a few things about the world beneath the boring gloss in his hometown.
First, Lena’s a caster, which means she casts spells and has supernatural powers, as do many of her family members. Second, she’s at an age when Ravenwood’s evil sister Sarafine (Thompson) is keen to recruit her to the dark side and turn her into a wicked witch.
All of which sets up your standard tale of young lovers separated by supernatural powers and at the mercy of evildoers that Twilight fans will recognise. Ehrenreich and Englert have actual chemistry and make a far better show of teenage love than those idiots in that other series of films, and the script gives them some entertaining quirks and actual personalities.
However, despite their strong performances and the assistance of a veteran cast, Beautiful Creatures ends up being a campy piece of Southern Gothic with no self-awareness of its campness.
Instead it is a forgettable film about a book no one knows about that even Twilighters might have trouble sitting through.
• Beautiful Creatures opens on Friday February 22 at cinemas nationwide
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