I would like to start by saying that I love film adaptations of books. I give them a lot of wiggle room as far as straying from the story and changing characters. I even bought all of the Twilight movies for crying out loud.
That being said, Beastly is the worst film adaptation…possibly the worst film period…that I have ever had the bad fortune to come upon. My husband had never read the book. His manly beard and extreme dislike of romance novels typically protects him from the horrors that come with a lot of young adult love stories. But he was a good sport and decided to watch the movie with me…a mistake he will never make again.
This was him for 83 minutes.
No joke. And if you ever read this Justin, I am really sorry that I used Justin Bieber as you.
On the other side of the couch, this was me for 83 minutes.
Seriously. I am so lucky he didn’t run out of the house screaming/crying.
Now that I have gotten most of my irrational emotions out, I will actually get to the review. The acting itself was not that bad, the film honestly lacked good writing. At times, Kyle (AKA the Beast) was actually charming and likable, but then would have a terrible line and it ruined the moment. My biggest complaint would have to be the discrepancies between the movie and the book. Very few things were the same–basically, they have the same title. So if that bothers you, just stay away. The appearance of both the main characters were completely different, Kendra (the witch) was Mary Kate Olsen (therefore pretty and non-scary), Lindy and the Beast didn’t come together the same way, there was no magic mirror, the time frame was cut in half…and this is just the first 15-20 minutes. The list goes on and on. In addition to the changes from the novel, the plot seemed thrown together and erratic. It jumped around a lot. Since I had read the book, I knew what was going on. Justin, on the other hand, thought the whole movie was a confusing mess.
Although we had different feelings during the movie, we did share the same emotion at the end.
I’m sorry for ranting, but I promise, that will be the last mad movie review…unless something else really terrible comes along.
The Landlocked Mermaid 