★★1/2 – Based off the young adult novel by Alex Flinn, Beastly is a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. The movie is a rather faithful retelling, which is what stops it from being a good movie. Beastly is really corny… and adorable. It has a certain charm that lets you enjoy it despite its many flaws.
Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four) stars as Kyle, the very good looking, self-absorbed, popular guy. When he crosses the wrong girl (or shall I say witch?), she places a spell on him that makes him scarred and ugly. In order to break the spell, he must get a girl to fall in love with him in a year’s time. Exiled out of Manhattan to…Brooklyn, he feels hopeless about his situation until he finds Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens). With the help of his blind tutor (Neil Patrick Harris) and housekeeper, he tries to get Lindy to fall in love with him before it’s too late to break the spell.
The movie is incredibly sweet. Like I mentioned before, it has a charm about it. Pettyfer makes Kyle so cute when he’s trying to win the affections of Lindy. Hudgens plays the romantic Lindy well. Neil Patrick Harris is very witty and offers comic relief at the right moments. This is what made the movie watchable and enjoyable.
On the other hand, there were just some parts that were so corny I couldn’t help but laugh at them. For instance, a bad drug deal and shooting scene is so trivialized. Couldn’t they have made it more realistic? It was obviously a plot device to get Lindy to move in with Kyle. This is where being faithful to the original story really hurt it. In the original story, Belle does move in with the Beast. But I don’t think it was really necessary to have Lindy move in with Kyle, maybe they could have devised another way for the two to meet and form a relationship. Or they could’ve made a realistic drug deal and murder scene, that wouldn’t have the entire audience laughing. Also, Lindy being upset that she can’t go to school because a drug dealer is out to kidnap and kill her was ridiculous. Why would you insist on going to school if you knew someone was looking out to kill you, even when it’s obviously the worst drug dealer in the world?
In a way, the movie is a metaphor of itself. Beastly had many flaws, but I still left the movie with a cheesy smile on my face. Maybe because 1. I’m a girl and 2. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite movie of all time. So if you love Beauty and the Beast and are a girl (or like girly things lol), you will definitely enjoy the Beastly.
Beastly is now playing in theaters.
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