The Lovely Bones - "A Beautifully Boring Piece Of Crap"
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 7:00AM
Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, serves as a great indicator to what a 'bad' movie from the highly lauded director is capable of making. Based on a 'not-as-boring' novel, The Lovely Bones is boring and vividly dull. The cast selection is just as baffling as the on-and-off CG dream sequences. The movie only excels during the more tense scenes involving Stanley Tucci's character. Had it not been for the trailer which spoils every major aspect of the plot of the movie, The Lovely Bones could have [at least] been a sub-par effort with a mystery to solve.
It feels strange to say this, but Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz are too distractingly beautiful to play believable parents of Susie Salmon. Though the setting is the late 70's, the wardrobe design feels off the mark. Whenever Wahlberg was on screen I was trying to determine was the [obvious] wig he wore some form of poetic symbolism for how disappointed I'd be with how this film would eventually pan out. Maybe it was Susan Surandon's character contribution to the film as Lynn the 'carefree alcoholic granny' that served as a subtle reminder; it officially warranted me to stop caring about every character's storyline.
You would think a movie centered around a 14-year-old girl's dying wish; of finding a manner to alerting her parents in how she was captured and killed, couldn't get weirder than that. Then they throw in a high-school romance between Susie and what has to be the oldest looking senior since Van Der Beek in Dawson's Creek. If there is anything you will learn from The Lovely Bones its that the rape and killing of girls is, and will be forever, an awful tragedy. However, the love affair between a freshman and a senior who looks to be entering his thirties -- nothing weird or off-putting about that. For the sake of artistic license, I recognize that The Lovely Bones is a somber story told mostly through the eyes of Susie. Her crush on the super-senior [played by Reece Richie] from England should be seen as par for the course -- it is the execution that bothers me.
The last thing you would expect from a Peter Jackson film is lackluster cinematic technique, but visually the movie feels incomplete. Some fantastic heavenly scenes are ruined with awful blocking and panning shots. And hold on to your hats Jackson fans, but there are CG sequences throughout The Lovely Bones that look cheesy and cheap. This isn't to say all of the visuals in the film are sewn-together with MS Paint sideshows, the world Susie inhabits [a.k.a. the farm your dog was sent to] has elements of beauty you'll be hard-pressed to find in most films out today.
When you are not chuckling at Wahlberg's wooden performance you'll endure almost two-plus hours of non-stop musical cues. The music never ends in The Lovely Bones. Maybe the composer and editor wanted to experiment with a new form of auditory sodomy and we were the lab rats. A big pet peeve I have is when a director and/or composer does not know when and when not to use music to heighten an emotion within a given scene. It's a sweet science, a science experiment gone awry in this film.
Thank goodness for Stanley Tucci. I won't spoil what was obviously given away in the trailer, but Stanley Tucci is almost too convincing as a serial killer of little girls. This is a huge leap from playing Julia Child's husband in Julia & Julie. Tucci is the only reason to humor watching The Lovely Bones; well, that and to laugh at the hair pieces on Wahlberg and Weisz's heads. Had it not been for a handful of well structured scenes, The Lovely Bones would truly be a forgettable film.
I Give The Lovely Bones...
The "Dead Body From Law & Order: SVU" Award
Reader Comments (2)
this movie sound to me like the typical nice story with a tender end, or at least with all that scenes that make public cry, I really hate this kind of stories, really I never could sit and watch a movie like this, I think that the only way to look a movie like this is taking and sit with some companion, you understand me.
I just didn't like the constant whispering narrative, made it seem like I was a tiny child in bed and someone was reading me a bedtime story. I also don't believe in ghosts, but that's another story, really.
The never-ending music got on my nerves, too. I like breaks from sound in films, it lets your mind suddenly take in..but the film felt like one huge drag. Was a shame.