day 3.90

movie review: beastly

beastly is the perfect title for this mess of a movie. after being pushed back from last summer, the vanessa hudgens vehicle finally made it to theaters. too bad they didn't take that extra time in the edit bay - or with reshoots. beastly is a modern retelling of beauty and the beast, so you'd think the creative team would attempt to add some twists and turns to make beastly a little less predictable. guess what? they don't. while i think the actors do the best with what they were given - especially neil patrick harris and lisa gay hamilton - the movie is an hour and a half of one uncomfortable moment after another. though it was nice to see mary kate olsen on the big screen ... i've missed her since new york minute. the movie won't hurt anyone's career - alex pettyfer and vanessa hudgens both have multiple projects in the works - but i don't know if this was a film screaming to be made. from the wikipedia description of the book beastly was based on, the book sounds a lot more interesting. maybe skip the theater and head straight to barnes and noble?