The Film
The Twilight torch has been passed. Well, sort of. They tried to pass it, but Beautiful Creatures must have been taking a nap.
Maybe they didn’t add enough eye of newt or something. Because BeautifulCreatures has the star-crossed lovers, the supernatural powers, and of course, the beautiful creatures. That said, it just can’t conjure up the same magic (or money) as Bella and Edward.
It all revolves around country boy Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich), who loathes his hometown and longs for something different. Well, he gets more than he bargained for with witchy teenage-woman Lena (Alice Englert). Now, technically, she’s a “Caster.” Either way, she seems to be the girl of his dreams — literally.
Based on the novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, this film adapation actually does have powers. It makes everyone in it seem like a crappy actor. Half the cast is over the top, with the other half coming off like graduates from the “Kristen Stewart School of Acting.” This is no small feat, considering how director Richard LaGravenese has amassed some grade-A acting talent here. That lineup includes Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, Margo Martindale and Emma Thompson.
Looking to conjure up another review of this movie? Check out Karen Dahlstrom’s magical theatrical review of Beautiful Creatures.
The Picture
This 2.40:1 image has a ton of dark moments, with some coming off better than others. At times, the film can be razor sharp, but others are filled with soft imagery and just lack the detail you’d expect from a newer film. That’s not to say it’s a bad image. In fact, Beautiful Creatures can be quite beautiful at times, with great colors, spot-on skintones, and textured costumes and scenery. So yes, it’s sort of a mixed bag, but it’s pretty nice looking overall.
The Sound
Right from the get-go, Beautiful Creatures uses its DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track to show off some nice sound effects. Thunder, shattering glass, spells and other mayhem all ring nicely throughout the soundfield. For a movie that leans so heavily on special effects, it would have been nice if there were more of those bold moments, but it’s a decent track overall.
The Extras
Besides the trailers and deleted scenes, Beautiful Creatures has six extremely short behind-the-scenes featurettes. There’s nothing real earth-shattering here, especially since the segments run between 3 and 5 minutes each. Over the six segments, the cast and director Richard LaGravenese talk briefly about the book, the characters, the real and supernatural worlds, the romance, the effects, the costumes, and more. In between, there are clips of the movie. It’s almost like everyone’s interviews were chopped up to make six individual segments.
Final Thoughts
Twilight proved that you don’t need a great movie to have a crazy following and giant box-office receipts. So I’m not sure what happened with BeautifulCreatures. Maybe people were upset that this stellar cast seems more like a bunch of zombies than witches. The AV and extras are decent enough. That said, unless you’re a genre super-fan or have a high threshold for pain, try to tune out whatever siren song calls you to check out these Beautiful Creatures.
Product Details
- Actors: Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, Thomas Mann, Emma Thompson
- Director: Richard LaGravenese
- Audio/Languages: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (French, Spanish)
- Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
- Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
- Number of Discs: 2
- Rating: PG-13
- Studio: Warner Bros.
- Blu-ray Disc Release Date: May 21, 2013
- Run Time: 124 minutes
- List Price: $35.99
- Extras:
- Book to Screen
- The Casters
- Between Two Worlds
- Forbidden Romance
- Alternate Worlds
- Beautiful Creatures: Designing the Costumes
- Deleted Scenes
- Trailers
- Standard-Def DVD
- UltraViolet Digital Copy
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