A supernatural love story set in the South, “Beautiful Creatures” tells the tale of two star-crossed lovers: Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich), a young man longing to escape his small town, and Lena (Alice Englert), a mysterious new girl. Together, they uncover dark secrets about their respective families, their history and their town. -(c) WB
I am a HUGE fan of the Beautiful Creatures novels that this film was based on. With these books, I would be running to the store the day the new book was released and would read the whole 450 page book in one day. Then I would be sad because I would have to wait a year for the next one. I was really excited when Warner Bros. announced that the first book was being made into a film. I was definitely hooked when Viola Davis and Jeremy Irons were cast as my 2 favorite characters in the series.
After seeing the film, I have very mixed feelings about it. There were a lot of things that I liked. First of all, the acting was great. Viola Davis and Jeremy Irons were great as Amma and Macon. I love these characters in the book and felt that they were brought to life by these two. I also loved Emma Thompson as Mrs. Lincoln and Sarafine in the movie. It was so different to hear Thompson with a southern accent. Her characters are villains in the film so it was fun to see Emma Thompson’s dark side. I thought that the two leads Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert had great chemistry together as Ethan and Lena.
I think the hardest thing for me was how much was changed and removed from the book. Fans of books are always sad to see material taken and changed from their ‘beloved’ books into the medium of film. There were just a lot of things that I really missed seeing on the screen. They may be small details but I was so disappointed to not see them in the movie.
I took my friend who has not read the book series to the film with me. She really liked it a lot and she is excited to read the books now. I think that I would have liked the movie more if I had not read the books beforehand but I still love the books. As a movie, I do think it is worth watching. I do hope the movie does well enough at the box office so that more of the series will be made. I am interested to see more of the story on the big screen.