SYNOPSIS: 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.

REVIEW: Yes, it is inevitable to compare this to Twilight. Is this the next Twilight? It could be, just slightly less juvenile and cheesy. This movie might charm you, pun intended. It is witty and fascinating, somewhat cool and intriguing. In a back drop of small town South Carolina, we have simple Southern folk to whom some more complicated folk arrive. Well these complicated folk have a dilemma to deal with and in the midst of the dilemma, let’s introduce a heaping of love to make it a truly bitter sweet complication. Don’t worry, we don’t have a love triangle situation here. It’s a more straight forward relationship that only has themselves to overcome to complete the everlasting bond of love. The fact that one of them is a bona fide witch could be a bit of a hurdle. Believe it or not, the story is not so bad and its presentation is pretty good too. It is a little more mature than Twilight because it is a little less insulting to our intelligence. The special effects are well done and not over the top which keeps the movie more grounded. This is a good thing. The cinematography is nice especially the various filming locations and sets. Plenty of nature, plenty of simple life, and plenty of modern life are demonstrated. Twilight has the edge here for sure though. Okay I will try to stop the comparison.

As far as performances go, Emma Thompson has the edge in that category. She was mesmerizing with her dual role which reinforces the fact that she is one of the better actresses of our time. Viola Davis comes in second with a sharp performance of a role that she was perfectly cast for. Jeremy Irons was good, but not as moving as in other films he has done. We get a decent performance along with some guy eye candy in the form of Emmy Rossum. I’ve had a crush on Emmy ever since The Day After Tomorrow and I seem to always attribute her to that movie. To see her play her character in this film was a true eye opener. And what about the two main characters played by Alice Englert and Alden Ehrenreich, well they did pretty good. Neither is very popular in mainstream big screen cinema yet, but I have a feeling they might get there. Alden gives us a convincing performance of a silly, dorky, hopeless romantic. Only problem with him is he doesn’t quite look like a high-schooler. Alice does well as a social outcast, troubled teen who wants nothing more than to be accepted and befriended, except she needs to get out of her own way first. Then there’s the director’s performance which was decent as well. Richard LaGravenese gives us a better than expected presentation of a tale that could have easily been weak. The movie does charm and if you like the genre, keeping in mind that the movie is not overwhelmingly grand, you won’t be disappointed.

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