Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Beautiful Creatures

In Movie Theaters February 14, 2013

Beautiful Creatures release date February 14, 2013.
STARRING: Viola Davis, Emmy Rosum, Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson, Alden Ehrenreich
DIRECTED BY: Richard LaGravenese
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
RATING: PG-13 (For adult themes, violence, language)
Beautiful Creatures Official Website: www.beautifulcreatures.warnerbros.com
DVD release date: TBD
Beautiful Creatures movie box office report:
Opening Day: $2,542,317
Opening Weekend: $10,002,000
Number of Theaters: 2,950
Total Gross: TBD

Beautiful Creatures, from director Richard LaGravenese (Freedom Writers), is the latest project attempting to conjure box office success in the highly-profitable supernatural romance genre. The source material story of the same name is part one of four installments in the Caster Chronicles (followed by Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos, and Beautiful Redemption) - a young adult book series from co-authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl about magical beings known as “Casters” locked in a struggle between light and dark.
At first glance, some viewers will no doubt dismiss Beautiful Creatures as Twilight with witches but just because a film includes supernatural elements and a romantic subplot doesn’t outright mean that it can’t deliver an entertaining moviegoing experience for fans outside of its core audience. Does LaGravenese present a movie with enough slick effects, intriguing characters, and worthwhile drama to expand the appeal of Beautiful Creatures to casual viewers – not just supernatural romance lovers?

Unfortunately, no. Beautiful Creatures is a choppy and melodramatic experience with very little payoff beyond the central love story. Worse yet, overlooking the usual on-the-nose dialogue about eternal love and sacrifice, this tale of star-crossed sweethearts is especially cheesy and unconvincing – even when compared to similarly heavy-handed young adult novel-turned-movies. Fans of the supernatural romance sub-genre will get about what they expect – a boy meets witch story with a few cool “Caster” variations along with scene after scene of teenagers ruminating about eternal love, duality, and Kurt Vonnegut. For that reason, Beautiful Creatures is serviceable but most moviegoers will find the film to be an overlong progression of disconnected scenes, weighed down with thick exposition and schmaltzy performances from its leads.