Saturdays during July are a bit of “Jeff Day” – well, “Jeff & Rumble Day” since Chris is working. This means I can do just about anything I want, which includes doing nothing.
I usually spend most of the day working on WordPress plugins and playing with the dog.
While working, I often put on a movie and this Saturday was no exception. I decided to pull up our copy of Beastly
I’d watched “I Am Number 4″ a few weeks ago and found it not too bad, and I liked Alex Pettyfer enough to give this a whirl. He looks pretty damn fine with his shirt off.
Beastly is a modern retelling of the classic Beauty & The Beast story where a man (always) is a rude obnoxious jerk and needs to be taught a lesson. In this case, Alex Pettyfer is Kyle, a spoiled rich kid with an obnoxious jerk of a dad (Peter Krause) who thinks that good looks and power go hand in hand and everyone else needs to “embrace the suck.”
That is until he goes one step too far and pisses off a witch – eerily well played by Mary Kate Olsen, and is cursed to spend 1 full year trying to find someone to say “I love you” to him. His curse is measured by the tree tattoo on his wrist that will bloom again in exactly one year.
He’s helped along his quest by 2 faithful sidekicks: Lumiere & Cogsworth. Oops, wrong movie. I mean Zola and Will, played by Lisa Gay Hamilton and Neil Patrick Harris (hilarious). Both of whom still love him and see him as a good person, despite him being rude to both.
Oh yeah, the girl. Vanessa Hudgens, best known for a lot of High School Musicals, plays Lindy on whom Kyle has a crush. I don’t know why. But he does, and it’s her he chooses to make say “I love you.”
It’s not easy, time runs out, he has to learn to love himself first, then there’s the father thing, tattoo blooming. “I love you” and happily ever after.
What? You thought it might end with him being a monster? Not likely.
Overall, I generally liked this, but they followed the Disney story to closely, and the ending seemed rushed. I also didn’t buy Kyle’s character development. Bleh.
3.5 / 5 stars from me.
Did you see it? Tell me what you thought in the comments.
