amanuensis1 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amanuensis1) wrote2011-08-14 01:12 pm
amanuensis1) wrote2011-08-14 01:12 pm
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DVD reviews: Red Riding Hood, Beastly
Caught up with a couple of takes-on-fairy-tales films this weekend, courtesy of DVD. Despite their not getting good reviews, I love fairy tale retellings and so wanted to give them a shot.
Red Riding Hood should have worked. The concept is clever; if I were to sit down and tell you the story as a narrative, you'd say, "That's killer. Why wasn't that a good film?" Pretty, plucky Amanda Seyfried to play the lead role, Gary Oldman as a posturing fire-and-brimstone werewolf hunter, why wouldn't that work? And yet I just couldn't shake the mood of how fake it all seemed. Something in the dialogue, something about the way the actors spoke and reacted and moved looked disconnected and the whole thing ended up feeling dull. I couldn't buy it. I liked the ending; I really liked the whole story of it. I'm sad it didn't work. I think it needed British accents or something.
Beastly wasn't bad, but one element messed with me: I never believed our hot beastly badboy really fell in love with his girl or really changed. Alex Pettyfer just played the rich fathead f*cktwat boy too well in the beginning of the film. Some things in the film did please me: I am pretty sick and tired of the romance trope where twenty minutes from the end of the film our protagonist reveals the false pretenses under which s/he started wooing his/her love interest, and love interest goes off hurt and we have seventeen minutes of downer movie before they're allowed to reconcile at the end. Beastly didn't have that, thanks so much. It also contains what may be Neil Patrick Harris's best role to date. Yes, I've seen Dr. Horrible. Still thought this was an even better performance. Also, eight words which I never believed I would say: I may be crushing on Mary-Kate Olsen right now.
Red Riding Hood should have worked. The concept is clever; if I were to sit down and tell you the story as a narrative, you'd say, "That's killer. Why wasn't that a good film?" Pretty, plucky Amanda Seyfried to play the lead role, Gary Oldman as a posturing fire-and-brimstone werewolf hunter, why wouldn't that work? And yet I just couldn't shake the mood of how fake it all seemed. Something in the dialogue, something about the way the actors spoke and reacted and moved looked disconnected and the whole thing ended up feeling dull. I couldn't buy it. I liked the ending; I really liked the whole story of it. I'm sad it didn't work. I think it needed British accents or something.
Beastly wasn't bad, but one element messed with me: I never believed our hot beastly badboy really fell in love with his girl or really changed. Alex Pettyfer just played the rich fathead f*cktwat boy too well in the beginning of the film. Some things in the film did please me: I am pretty sick and tired of the romance trope where twenty minutes from the end of the film our protagonist reveals the false pretenses under which s/he started wooing his/her love interest, and love interest goes off hurt and we have seventeen minutes of downer movie before they're allowed to reconcile at the end. Beastly didn't have that, thanks so much. It also contains what may be Neil Patrick Harris's best role to date. Yes, I've seen Dr. Horrible. Still thought this was an even better performance. Also, eight words which I never believed I would say: I may be crushing on Mary-Kate Olsen right now.
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We're probably among the few who are happy there are two versions of Snow White coming out in films, right?
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*has only one Alex Pettyfer icon*
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