Beastly

Director: Daniel Barnz

Duration: 86 minutes

Rating: PG-13

Cast: Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens

The modern Disney-adaptation of The Beauty and the Beast comes in the form of Beastly (2011), starring the two hottest celebrities Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer. Alex Pettyfer, with his gorgeous physique, plays the role of Kyle, a snobby prep who gets everything and anything he wants because he is simply “beautiful”. He shuns those who are less beautiful than he is and has many, many faux-friends, who just use him to their advantages without his knowledge. On the day of Prom, the narcissistic prince becomes transformed into a monster, to learn his lesson that the outer shell is not everything. When he reveals his hideous self to his supposed-to-be close ones like his father, girlfriend, and other friends, they crouch in disgust of him and all run away. But then, he meets the nerdy, goody-two-shoes Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens). And you know how it is, like The Beauty and the Beast; they slowly fall in love, regardless of the social and physical difference.

I commend the movie’s excellent storyline/plot. It stuck to the book for 90% of the time, which is very rare to find in these book-to-movie translated films. But the film itself felt very short. Not because I was totally absorbed and engrossed in the movie but because the pacing was too taffy-like. Some parts were very slow, while some parts were too fast. It was very inconsistent and the two main characters had conflicted feelings for the majority of the movie. They confirmed each other’s feelings in the last 10 minutes of the movie. It seemed like the script-writers were taking their time explaining everything that had happened but seeing the due-date, had slammed some sort of last-minute ending to the movie. For me, the ending of any movie is equally (if not more) important as the beginning of the movie. I don’t know why it would be written that way though, since the movie is only 86 minutes. The writers could have added on some type of unique epilogue to the movie so that the audience wouldn’t be left just with the bare backbone of The Beauty and the Beast. After all, this is the contemporary era so the crew should have ate their hearts out with the new technology and added a brand new twist to the ending, since the setting itself was in New York. If not, they could have just cut Kyle’s soliloquies and gone straight into the “boy meets girl” part of the movie. And also, it may have been the budget standard, but the setting and props weren’t as extravagant as it could have been. I mean the “high school” is an elite academy, only for the richest of the richest. And the home properties were supposed to be in the Upper West-Manhattan, which translates into BLING BLING! Money.

Other than those faults I found, the movie was very entertaining, mostly since I have the hots for Alex Pettyfer, along with 2387460 teenage girls. If anyone feels like watching a chick-flick movie with an irregular time division, this definitely would be the movie to go to.

Entertainment: ★★★

Social Commentary: ★★

Acting: ★★★

Total: ★★★