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    Beastly

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

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    If you're looking for a film adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast", go with the Disney animated version, or the 1946 French one. Don’t even glance at “Beastly”. This cheap, misguided attempt to modernize the fairytale messes it all up.

    Kyle Kingson (Alex Pettyfer) is the richest, most handsome, popular and vain student in school. After bullying the resident goth, a witch named Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen) he is transformed into a “hideous” beast! To break the spell, he must get someone to fall in love with him, which is where Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens) comes in.

    This film wants to have it both ways. Kyle Kingson (get it, King’s Son? As in prince? ) is supposed to be ugly, but the teenage girls in the audience are also supposed to fawn over him, so he’s still got a ripped chest. His "hideous" visage is created through odd (but professional-looking) tattoos and strange piercings. It wants to be modern, with cell phones and emails, and also wants to be a fairytale. They don't mesh. In an age of chat rooms and texting, Kyle would easily be able to romance a woman over the internet. Then there's the magic. Even If you can look past the fact that the goth chick is an actual witch (I suppose the guys playing Magic: The Gathering in the cafeteria are warlocks), this story is nutty. We’re told that surgery and skin grafts are attempted (off-screen) to remove Kyle’s curse, but they don’t work. Isn’t that a big story? Where are the newspapers with “Breaking News! MAGIC IS REAL! ” plastered all over them?

    Several times throughout, you’ll be distracted by the thoroughly unconvincing Neil Patrick Harris as a blind tutor. The story is ridiculous and contrived, with one of the least credible instances of blackmail I’ve ever seen on-screen. The romance is flimsy and built mostly through the use of montages instead of actually written scenes. At one point, a love triangle develops between Lindy, Kyle… and “Hunter”, Kyle’s new identity as the Beast! As Lindy comments, she knows Kyle was a jerk, but she still kind of liked him. So is it what’s inside that counts… or not?

    As a film that’s so bad it’s good, “Beastly” fares moderately well. The clumsy story and script are so manufactured that you'll never run out of funny comments/observations. During the second half, it slows considerably, meaning it’s not quite as enjoyable to ridicule as “Twilight” (whom it's desperately trying to ape) For added fun, check out the alternate ending found on the DVD. If you’re seeing it as I did, back-to-back with an actual good adaptation of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s story, with friends who have no idea what they’re getting into, you can have an enjoyable time at the expense of “Beastly”. (On DVD, February 23, 2017)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  23.3.2017 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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