Film: Trippin’ Over “The Lovely Bones”

The Monocle Review (Pictured Left)

The Screaming, Monocle,

Fedora, and Rubber Chicken

Review (Pictured Right)

*****

Thanks for the suggestions. See? I'm listening. The next book to be read will be “The Reader” by Benhard Schlink. After “The Reader” will be “Twilight” by Stephanie Meyer.

As for movies, I had a suggestion to review some of the Oscar Nominees. I couldn’t get my hands on any of them this week, but next week I will be starting that with “Inglorious Basterds”, followed by “District 9”, “The Hurt Locker”, and “The Blind Side.” That’s probably all I’ll have time for before the Oscars on March 7. After the Oscars, it will be back to other suggestions by you, or the AFI Top 100.

Thanks for the suggestions, and keep ‘em coming. Hope you enjoy the reviews.

*****

Synopsis:

Susie Salmon was an average fourteen year old girl. She went to school, got into arguments with her parents, and held crushes on guys…until she was murdered. “The Lovely Bones” centers around Susie’s ghost trying accept her death, and on the efforts of Susie’s family to find her killer.

Plot:

When critiquing the plot of this movie, I found it important to distinguish which plot I was reviewing. There was the one plot about Susie venturing through the after-life, trying to come to terms with leaving the world of the living. There was the plot of the father trying to hunt down Susie’s killer while still holding the family together. Finally, there was plot of the post-death romantic relationship of Susie and her crush. The qualities of the plots were fair, impressive, and poor, respectively. Susie’s afterlife seemed like an extended dream-sequence: completely surreal with imagery being tossed to and fro in an attempt to convey a deeper meaning. The plot of the father and the family was that of an average mystery. The final plot seemed to be there simply as an underdeveloped excuse to keep Susie occupied in her struggles with moving on. None of them meshed together successfully, and the resulting product gave the film a schizophrenic feel rather than a sophisticated one.

Characters:

The characters were the strong suit of this movie. All of them had depth beyond what was originally presented, and all of them (exempting the killer) changed over the course of the movie. Susie was a likeable character, albeit only because she saved her brother’s life in the very beginning of the movie. Her struggles were also realistic to those of a young girl, even in death. The father was my personal favorite. His struggle with accepting Susie’s death, and his slow spiral and gradual disconnect with logic and reason was one of the most interesting facets of the film. The killer was also an interesting character. The film does an excellent job of delving just far enough into his mind to understand him, but not far enough to bring us to sympathize with him. I enjoyed this, as I had a feel for who he was while keeping my sense of satisfaction when he received his inevitable karmic retribution.

Visual Effects / Audio:

The visual effects were impressive. Granted, they needed to be considering a good half of the movie took place entirely within a computer generated world of imagery and surrealism. All of Susie’s afterlife sequences were jammed full of special-effect enhanced metaphors. Personally, I think that it was overdone. A lot of the messages the film was trying to convey could have been communicated with much less complication. The audio was, unfortunately, entirely forgettable and left no lasting impression at all.

Overall:

While not a bad movie, I can’t say that “The Lovely Bones” was particularly good either. I wouldn’t suggest seeing this in theaters; but if you have some spare time on your hands once it comes out on video, I would say give it a look then,

3 / 5 Stars

Plot:

The movie was okay. In the beginning, there was a kick-ass car chase, but after that, things slowed down. A lot. It was mostly suspense after car scene. I normally don’t mind suspense, but this had absolutely no tension. There wasn’t anything thrilling about it. The suspense scenes were just the movie going, ‘I’m gonna do it! I’m gonna do it! I’m stillllll gonna do it. BOO! HA! I did it!’

Then again, tt wasn’t all bad that the movie was like that. There were a few scenes, such as Susie’s visit to an otherworldly bathroom, where I think they were trying to be dramatic, but came off as ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS instead. Kinda like Vader’s “NOOOOOOOOOO!” from Star Wars.

Characters:

A lot of the characters in this movie are annoying idiots. Susie is clingy whiner, the dad is an obsessive nutcase, and the killer is, well, a wack-minded psycho. None of them have an ounce of common sense, and the only reason the killer wasn’t found twenty minutes in was because everyone else was just as stupid as he was. The only person with a brain at all is Susie’s sister. By the way, she is also the only one who does anything productive when trying to find the killer.

Visual Effects/ Audio:

When I was watching this movie, half the time I didn’t know whether I was in a theater or on a drug trip. Seriously, trees were melting, beach balls were the size of random islands, and the environment changed more times than Brett Favre’s retired.

Overall:

This movie is pretty bad. There are maybe two or three cool parts in the entire thing, and I, personally, was happy when the main character died for good. Skip this one.

1.5 / 5 Stars

*****

SATURDAY QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

Who do you think is going to win the Super Bowl?

Best Answers (Read: Most Entertaining) to be posted along with next question.

What other films do you want to see reviewed? Leave a comment and let me know!

--David F. Ducey IV