Beastly (Movie Review)

I went to see this one a while ago, and I kept putting off the review, because I'm not sure how much I liked the movie version of Beastly. It definitely wasn't bad, and I enjoyed it, but there were parts that made me think it wasn't quite as good as I'd hoped.

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First of all, I really like Alex Pettyfer as an actor, despite his distracting, er, attractiveness? Anyway, he was great in the movie; I believed him as both the jerky, arrogant guy and as a remorseful, honestly nice guy. In fact, I think I identified with Kyle better in the movie than in the book. I also really liked that the movie strayed from Beauty and the Beast more than the novel. In a lot of ways, I think the film was actually a little better than the novel. Which is really, rare in book-to-film adaptions.

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I've never been a fan of Vanessa Hudgens, but I kidn of liked her in the movie. She was funny and sweet and did a good job at being Lindy. At points the romance seemed a little forced, but other than that, her chemistry with Pettyfer was pretty good. Their script was good too. I loved the little moments between the characters, and how it showed their love grow slowly. My favorite part (or character, I guess) was Will. I was a little nervous of Neil Patrick Harris playing him, since he's such a serious and profound character in the novel. However, I loved the hilarious one-liners he got, and I loved how serious he could be.

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My biggest complaint was how they made Kyle look; he wasn't really ugly. He looked more like a guy who had shaved off all his hair (eyebrows included) and gotten a lot of tattoos. I would've preferred it if he'd looked at least a little more convincing as a "beast." The way it was, it didn't seem like such a stretch for anyone to fall in love with him, even someone superficial.

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Overall, Beastly was a good movie. Not particularly fantastic, but not bad at all. I'd recommend it to people who enjoy romantic comedy-dramas, with some nice twists thrown in.

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Rating: 3.9 stars

I Am Number Four (Movie Review)

Okay, guys, this is my first movie review, so bear with me. I was going to do a normal review, I figured I'd do this instead since I just saw the movie. Today I went to see I Am Number Four, and it was amazing! I had high expectations, considering I really enjoyed the book, and I was happily surprised when it actually surpassed them. Alex Pettyfer was great as Number Four, and I think all of the actors portrayed their characters well. The story was great, and even though I read the book before, I think it was easy to follow if you hadn't read it. And wow, the special effects were great! I was totally drawn into the movie from the beginning.

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I'm going to be honest: Pettyfer definitely added something to the movie that had nothing to do with actual acting. So maybe I'm a tad more impressed because of that fact, but I still thought it was a great movie. It was filled with action and good dialogue, and I actually cared about the characters. One thing i thought was great was how nicely everything was paced. Nothing really suffered in the transformation from book to movie, except maybe a little bit of explaining. But nothing was totally overlooked, and I was overall, really happy with what scenes were kept in and what scenes were looked over and shortened.

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The movie isn't particularly deep, but I don't think anyone went into that theater expecting something deep really. It also had a few rough scenes; I thought the romance between Agron and Pettyfer seemed a little quick and strained, but they didn't affect the movie in a strong way. It was intense and suspenseful, and completely lived up to expectations. My favorite part was probably how great the battle/fight scenes looked. I'd recommend this one to anyone looking for a good action-adventure with some, (cough, Alex Pettyfer, cough) great actors in it. I'm looking forward to the sequel (both book and movie).

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Rating: 4 stars