What better way to spend Valentine’s Day than to watch a teenage paranormal romance movie adaptation? The answer: there is no better way. Maybe there is, but I think “Beautiful Creatures” will be decent enough to blow $10 on.
“Beautiful Creatures” by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl is the first in its series. It’s set in a fictional town in South Carolina. The book follows Ethan Wate, who keeps having dreams of a girl he doesn’t know. One morning he wakes up to the smell of rosemary and lemon, and a song called “Sixteen Moons,” mysteriously appears on his iPod.
He finds out there is a new girl named Lena, who is the niece of the town’s recluse. Ethan hears Lena playing the song on his iPod and notices she smells like rosemary and lemon when he helps her with her car, after almost running her over. Obviously, this is the girl from his dreams.
They embark on a forbidden romance (what’s new?) when he learns she is a magic user called a “Caster.” On her sixteenth birthday she’ll either become Light or Dark. The whole town hates Lena, and Ethan is the only one trying to save her. They both discover that they’re connected through the history of the town and Casters.
There are some hardcore scenes in the book that better make their way into the movie. Some of them I have seen in the trailer, so that’s a good sign. The first scene is when Lena gets so frustrated in class from people being rude to her that she accidentally makes all the windows in the class room break. It doesn’t sound like it would be intense, but the way Garcia and Stohl write it, it is.
The next scene is the scene where Lena’s family and Ethan are having dinner together, and all hell breaks loose. This scene is in the trailer, and it looks almost the exact same to the eyes than it does to the mind.
The final scene I want to see, one not in the trailer, is the scene in Lena’s bedroom where they both admit they love each other. Her thoughts are echoed in writing on her wall, and it’s just a really cute scene.
The only problem that I have with this movie — from what I’ve seen of the trailer — is the actors. The main two actors are supposed to be extremely good looking, and in the movie they aren’t. It bugs me. Next, in the book, there is a lot of emphasis on the necklace Lena wears, and I didn’t notice her wearing one in the trailer.
This movie opened on Valentine’s Day, and the book is already out — along with sequels. Check both of them out. The book is super long and sometimes drags at places, but get through it and you’ll enjoy it. Everyone is going to have to put up with the awful Southern accents in the movie, but it’ll hopefully be worth it.
