Beastly - Movie Review

I remember being so excited about this movie last year. And so disappointed when they (they being the all powerful Hollywood bigwigs) pushed back the release date as it clashed with a Zac Effron Movie. As an aside, The Life and Death of Charlie St. Cloud was an AWESOME movie. And Beastly was not. To be fair, it wasn’t all that bad and to quote Lindy herself “I’ve seen worse”.

I’ve been trying to figure out why it failed to hit the mark and the only explanation I can come up with is that it was missing the wow factor. I mean, I enjoyed the book, I like the story and I think the casting choices were good but something was missing. If memory serves, I don’t think they strayed away from the book too much but perhaps the translation to screen didn’t work that well.

There’s a lot of fairy tales being reworked into modern day novels and translations onto the big screen nowadays. As well as Beastly, there’s Red Riding Hood and the upcoming Snow White remake. I don’t think this trend is going to go away anytime soon and that’s okay with me but it has to be done well.

One of the saving graces of the movie was Neil Patrick Harris who arguably stole the show in his portrayal of the blind tutor. I love his sense of comic timing; he certainly has come a long way since Doogie Howser!

I thought Alex Pettyfer was an excellent choice for Kyle/Hunter. With his boyish good looks and if we are to believe recent interviews, arrogance too, I thought he played the part really convincingly. I have to ask though, am I the only girl who doesn’t have a crush on him? I actually preferred him as a beast. Seriously.

One of the Olsen twins played the witch and whilst I’ve read negative reviews of her performance, I actually thought she was perfect for the part and actually did a good job. She certainly convinced me and I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side!

At first, I wasn’t so sure about Vanessa Hudgens as Lindy but I think she pulled it off. I do find her slightly annoying as an actress (sorry Vanessa) but thankfully that didn’t detract from the movie.

Overall, Beastly didn’t blow me away and will not go down in history as a masterpiece but I’m glad I’ve seen it and would definitely watch it again on a drizzly, Sunday afternoon. The movie is definitely watchable but my advice is to wait for the DVD.