Beautiful Creatures hits theaters today (Valentine's Day, how perfect!) and unless you're a Caster Chronicles obsessed teen who is going to see this flick no matter what people say, you should probably check out this collection of reviews, as they are overwhelmingly mediocre. Before you get to them, here are some important notes:
- Beautiful Creatures is trying to rope in all of the "Twilight" with a a few changes: the boy for the girl, "casters" for vampires, and the South for the Northwest. But we already knew that, didn't we?
- The performances of leads Alice Englert and Alden Ehrenreich have been unanimously heralded as above average, with some critics saying that they were absolutely superb. What is most certain is that they are more likable than Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.
- The performances of Academy Award winners Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson in this movie are polarizing. Some critics say that the pair are by far the most enjoyable element of the movie, while others are worried that their overacting and terrible Southern accents will jeopardize their reputations.
- The Southern accents in this film are terrible!
Don't forget to share your own reviews in the comments section below once you have seen the film!
Loved It
Mick LaSalle - SF Chronicle
Score: 3 out of 4
Excerpt: To watch "Beautiful Creatures" is to be impressed at how it taps into the passions, anxieties and distorted perceptions of youth, almost as if someone devised a series of buttons to press - and out came money.
Thought It Was Okay
Peter Travers - Rolling Stone
Score: 2 out of 4
Excerpt: It's warmed-over Twilight, with witches instead of vamps, only the witches are called casters as in spell casters. When Lena hits her 16th birthday she'll be called to fight with the light side or the dark side. It's a bigger yawn than it sounds. As supernatural types, Oscar winners Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson overact so strenuously and with such outrageously awful Southern accents that you fear the damage this crock may do to their reputations.
Liam Lacey - Globe and Mail
Score: 2 out of 4
Excerpt: What promised to be a teen screwball comedy with a supernatural twist soon descends into special-effects overkill and camp acting from the overqualified supporting cast, with British thespians Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson hamming it up like players in a Christmas pantomime.
Connie Ogle - Miami Herald
Score: 2 out of 4
Excerpt: There’s potential here, a decent story and a cast well-stocked with grownup cinematic luminaries. But this supernatural Gothic romance is a prisoner of its own demons, which include sketchy Southern accents, tacky and tired stereotypes and faux homespun dialogue in the wrong mouths. “I missed the exit to fascinating” or “Some girls are mad dogs, son — you can either run or shoot!” seem unlikely folksy wisdom to spill from the mouths of 16-year-old boys.
Richard Roeper - Chicago Sun-Times
Score: 2.5 out of 4
Excerpt: "Beautiful Creatures" springs to life whenever Irons, Thompson or Rossum is centerstage. (We also see fine work from Viola Davis, though she's stuck with a cliched role as a perpetually concerned mother figure who knows a lot more about the town's cursed history than anyone.) The grown-ups get to wear all the coolest costumes and spout all the juiciest lines.
Christy Lemire - Associated Press
Score: 2 out of 4
Excerpt: The genders have been reversed but the supernatural, star-crossed teen angst remains firmly intact in "Beautiful Creatures," which clearly aims to pick up where the "Twilight" franchise left off.
Manohla Dargis - New York Times
Score: 3 out of 5
Excerpt: Among the movie’s charms is its button-cute narrator-hero, Ethan Wate (a delightful Alden Ehrenreich), one of those high school boys who sound and act too good to be true, but it’s sure nice to pretend they exist. He’s at once smart and popular, kind and strong, athletic and bookish, innocent and wise to his own heart.
Claudia Puig - USA Today
Score: 2.5 out of 4
Excerpt: At its best while tossing off pop-culture humor — much of it about movies — and during the surprising reveal of the interior of Macon's haunted house, the film drags during some of the supernatural scenes and during gatherings of Lena's witchly clan. No big surprises mark this paranormal, soap-opera-style romance with screwball comic moments. Though not enchanting, Beautiful Creatures qualifies as an entertaining guilty pleasure.
Michael Phillips - Chicago Tribune
Score: 2 out of 4
Excerpt: When classy, pedigreed British actors go hog-wild under the flowering dogwood trees of a Southern Gothic setting, often the results are good. Just as often they're so bad they're good. And sometimes, as is the case with Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson in "Beautiful Creatures," they're simply doing the best they can under the circumstances.
Hated It
Rafer Guzman - Newsday
Score: 1.5 out of 4
Excerpt: Narratively, it's so muddled that the characters spend more time explaining the story than acting it out. Fighting for thematic dominance are the Civil War, religion and -- get this -- Charles Bukowski. They all lose.
In the end, "Beautiful Creatures" has one overarching problem: It's boring. "Twilight" was many things, but never that.