FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Beautiful Creatures is basically Twilight with witches. Ethan falls for Lena, the mysterious new girl at his school, and soon discovers she's a witch โ or rather a "caster". And her sixteenth birthday is approaching, when she'll definitively become either good or evil.
Now, perhaps equating it to Twilight was a bit harsh โ this one does have more of a story and actual stakes to it โ but, as it's a supernatural love story that came out in the wake of Twilight, the comparisons are inevitable.
At first, I really thought I was going to hate Ethan, because he does nothing but quote pretentious poetry. But I did kind of buy into his relationship with Lena: he's the only one who's nice to her, and they do bond over their shared interest in poetry; that at least gives them more of a foundation for a relationship than Edward and Bella!
Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson's southern accents are really distracting, though, Irons in particular.
One thing I really hated was the Emily character. She does nothing but chastise Lena for religious reasons. She's that clichรฉd one-dimensional asshole that I hate for all the wrong reasons!
But my real issue is that the movie has no regard whatsoever for pacing. Spoilers here, but the plot just meanders to the point where I honestly thought the mind-wipe scene was the end.
Overall, this movie is terribly flawed, with bad visual effects and inconsistent pacingโฆ but it's still better than Twilight! :)
My rating: 45%