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‘Beautiful Creatures,’ a notch ahead in teen flicks
Rising actors Alden Ehrenreich (left) and Alice Englert
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Rising actors Alden Ehrenreich (left) and Alice Englert. (AP/Warner Bros.)
With a storyline involving two teenagers of different “race” entwined in a forbidden love set right in the middle of a crossfire of spells and magic, this movie could not escape comparison with the Twilight series.
But what a fortunate comparison Beautiful Creatures had, getting measured up against Twilight, because the former served as a better opening for its respective series.
Creatures is an American romantic fantasy film based upon the novel of the same name by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. The film is directed by Richard LaGravenese and features rising actors Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert as the lead characters.
In the novel series, Creatures will be resumed in Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos, Dream Dark and Beautiful Redemption.
The movie has basically covered all that is needed for a teen fantasy flick: unlikely encounter, love at first sight, peer pressure, clash of clans, magic spells and family secrets.
It opens with Ethan Wate (Ehrenreich) waking up from his dream about an unknown girl, who he has fallen in love with after repeated encounters in dreams, in the fictional town of Gatlin, South Carolina.
Born and raised in a very conservative town, which he describes as having 12 churches but only one library of mostly banned books, Ethan yearns to leave immediately after graduation.
He likes to read books by famous authors, quote lines and draw inspiration from them, a habit he learned from his mother Lila Evers, who died in a car accident. Ethan and his father are being taken care of by a family friend Amma (Viola Davis).
On the first day of his junior year, Ethan meets Lena Duchannes (Englert), who resembles the girl he has been dreaming about.
The other students, especially Ethan’s ex-girlfriend Emily Asher (Zoey Deutch), do not like her due to her being the niece of Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons), whose family the people of the town believe were worshipers of Satan.
On his drive home, Ethan nearly hits Lena, whose car has broken down on the side of the street. Ethan strikes up a conversation with her and finds Lena shares a love of literature and that she too has lost her parents.
One day, hearing accusations from her classmates, Lena grows angry and suddenly the class windows shatter, injuring the students. The incident is taken as confirmation by the students and the townspeople that Lena and her family indeed are deep in witchcraft.
Later, Ethan goes to the Ravenwood mansion to see if Lena is alright and to get to know her. He gives her a locket, which he had found earlier on the former civil war battleground, as a present.
The touch of the locket triggers a shared glimpse of flashbacks to the Civil War, after which Ethan finds himself by his bed. Macon disapproves of Ethan and Lena’s relationship and tells him to never set foot in the mansion again.
Lena and Ethan later find out that their ancestors, caster Genevieve Duchannes and Confederate soldier Ethan Carter, were in love. Ethan was shot in battle and Genevieve revived him using a forbidden spell that caused her to go “dark” and curse the women of the Duchannes to follow her path.
Like in many romance movies, more than a few utterances by a number of characters come out cheesy and clichéd, but fortunately witty and heartwarming banter scattered through the film is enough to compensate.
Despite its fantasy label, the visual effects in the movie are barely enough to meet audience’ expectation. Luckily, the effects do not play an important part in the story. Spanning 124 minutes, the pace can sometimes drag the audience with introductions and explanation.
However, the movie creates an interest in further exploration of the characters, their history and traits, which is what a good series opener should do.
Beautiful Creatures
(124 minutes, Alcon Entertainment, Warner Bros.)
Director: Richard LaGravenese
Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, Emma Thompson
Screenwriter: Richard LaGravenese
Producers: Andrew A. Kosove, Broderick Johnson, Erwin Stoff, David Valdes
