Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hr. 35 min.
Cast:
- Alex Pettyfer
- Vanessa Hudgens
- Mary-Kate Olsen
- Neil Patrick Harris
- Erik Knudsen
|
 |
Review - "Beastly"
Reviewer: Cori Vella
Rating:
Beastly is a modern retelling of the classic "Beauty and the Beast" story we've all heard at least once in our lifetime (thanks, Disney). This is by no means a new concept, as a lot of fairy tales and fables these days are rehashed and reworked (or sometimes bastardized completely) to fit into contemporary settings. Love or hate the whole retelling business, it's going to keep cropping up so long as the morals of those fairy tales continue to ring true.
The moral of the "Beauty and the Beast" story is that it does not matter what a person looks like on the outside, it's what's inside that counts. In Beastly, we are introduced to our main character, Kyle Kingson (in the book by Alex Finn, from which the movie is based, his name was Kyle Kingsbury, and I still have no idea why the screenwriters felt they needed to change it. But I digress...) has it all: the underwear model looks, the power of popularity, and the super-rich TV anchorman father. He is the stereotypical douchebag that all you girls swooned over in high school.
But Kyle makes a big mistake: he tangos with the wrong "ugly" person, a witch named Kendra (played by Mary-Kate Olsen). Kendra places a curse on him, making him as ugly outwardly as he is on the inside. He is given one year to find someone to love him for who he is, or will stay a beast forever.
Enter Lindy Taylor (played by Vanessa Hudgens), a girl attending Kyle's private school on a scholarship. Before Kyle is cursed, we see him have a spark of interest in her, but it's not enough to redeem him. After Kyle is turned, Lindy becomes an object of obsession. Covering his deformed face with a hoodie, Kyle follows Lindy around town. It is thanks to those stalkerish tendencies that he catches Lindy's father, a drug addict, murdering a man. Lindy's father begs Kyle not to turn him in, and Kyle demands Lindy as payment for keeping quiet. In a true Father-of-the-Year act, Mr. Taylor sends his daughter to live with Kyle indefinitely.
Lindy hates living with Kyle (who tells her his name is Hunter), but as they become more familiar and comfortable with each other, a deep friendship grows. Lindy even goes so far as to tell "Hunter" that she had a crush on this kid who used to go to her school, Kyle Kingson, leading Kyle to believe that maybe she could eventually come to love him. Urged on by his blind tutor Will (played by Neil Patrick Harris), Kyle decides to tell Lindy how he feels about her in a hand-written letter. He gives this letter to Lindy after he lets her take the train back home to see her ailing father.
Discouraged and certain that Lindy does not feel the same way about him, Kyle ignores her phone calls and allows the little time he has left pass. He does, of course, come to his senses and runs after her, even though he fears it is too late to break the curse. As with all light-hearted romances, Lindy does feel the same way, they kiss, she says, "I love you," and BAM! the curse is broken.
Happy ending, fun photo montage, credits roll.
Beastly is not going to win any major awards. If Rotten Tomatoes is considered even remotely accurate, not a whole lot of people liked Beastly. But you know what? It was cute, it was entertaining, and it made me cry. I will most likely be buying it on DVD when it's released. It was a definite departure from the book, which I read about a month before the movie was released, but didn't veer so far off course as to make it unrecognizable (here's looking at you, Blood and Chocolate). I enjoyed different parts of each, and they compliment each other well.
I'll be the first to admit that I can't hear Vanessa Hudgens' name without thinking of the horrible whining they tried to pass off as singing in High School Musical, but I think she has really grown since her Disney days. While the role of Lindy Taylor isn't a challenging one, she pulled it off believably. Alex Pettyfer was surprising — in my mind, he's always been "that pretty guy who everyone wants to play Peeta in The Hunger Games." But Alex Pettyfer brought sensitivity and real kindness to the character, something that I thought would be impossible for a guy with chiseled cheekbones and washboard abs.
Which goes to show you that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover — the whole point of the story. Lesson learned.
|
Advertising 
