Beastly

After watching the opening moments of Daniel Barnz's "Beastly," you will have received every piece of information you need to know about the film. It opens with a song called "Vanity," a Hanover Swain tune that plays over footage of a hunky topless man working out as he smugly grins at himself in the mirror, performing push-ups and chin-ups. The song continues as we are given establishing shots of billboards on which pictures of half-naked men and women are professionally posing for all to see, the tune's lyrics repeating the word "vanity" over and over again. These introductory scenes work furiously to ram the film's message down the viewer's throat until their arms and legs are flailing in the air and they can no longer breathe -- by the time the song faded out, I was already gagging.

Yes, "Beastly" is all about vanity, specifically the vanity of the aforementioned mirror-grinner, a blonde-curled, six-packed, slim-jim hunk who's more arrogant than Kanye West at a music awards show. His name is Kyle Kingston (Alex Pettyfer, "I Am Number Four"), a rich kid, son of a news anchor, lover of himself, and he's running for student body president at his school.

After winning purely for his handsome physique and having his head lodged inside his own anus, he mocks emo kid Kendra (Marie-Kate Olsen, twin sister of Ashley) for being, like, weird and emo and, like, stuff. And then Kendra reveals herself to be a witch of sorts, and sneakily places a spell on the unsuspecting Kyle. He feels dizzy at the after-party, goes to his ridiculously expensive home and watches as his reflection hideously changes.

Kendra has cursed him with a spell that has all but destroyed his luscious good looks, to which he reacts with understandable whining. However, with all his hair shaved off and his body covered in scars and tattoos, he just looks like a guy who's recently had another drunken night out with his mates. He could have "I LUV JIM-BOB" tattooed on his forehead, it wouldn't seem out of place.

The rule of his curse is that if he gets someone to say that they love him within a year, then his hunk-a-liscious looks will be returned immediately. However, if he is unable to do this, then he will forever be a scarred, tattooed, eyebrow-less slap-head. I tell you what he could do: phone up a sex line and get the girl on the other end to say she loves him -- see, happy ending for him. Ahem.

Okay, so "Beastly" is essentially a contemporary reworking of the classic fairytale "Beauty and the Beast," the film itself based on the 2007 novel "Beastly" by Alex Flinn. The tale is beloved by many, its popularity increased by the dazzlingly animated Disney adaptation of 1991. However, there are no singing candles or dancing wardrobes in this beast of a movie; instead, we have brooding teenagers and sad-faced emoticons on Facebook updates. :-(

"Beastly" is catering to the most easily pleased audience in the world: teenage girls. Like "Twilight" (but without decent filmmaking to back itself up), it's all about mopey adolescent romance, it trying only to satisfy the fantasies of the swooning tweens in the otherwise-bored audience. And the thing is, much as I disliked this film, it will undoubtedly satisfy its demographic's desires. Does this mean it is any good? Not in any way, shape or form.

The hilarious thing is that after Kyle's supposedly ghastly transformation, he is still relatively good-looking. Sure, he's lost his golden locks, he's got scars running along his body, tattoos and piercings covering his face, and his ears are all doolally, but he's still the hunky, athletic Alex Pettyfer with the dreamy eyes and false American accent that makes anyone with sex organs weak at the knees.

He's not the strongest of actors, his facial expressions strained at times and his line delivery occasionally bland, the same as he was in "I Am Number Four." However, the British actor is still the lickable eye candy who all the teens will weep for when his good looks turn bad. Poor smug, arrogant, detestable, nasty bastard son of a bitch character! Why'd it have to happen to HIM?! Why not Paris Hilton?

Disney princess Vanessa Hudgens ("Sucker Punch") is the angelic love interest, a ridiculously kind, sweet and caring young adult named Lindy who we actually watch feed the homeless in one laughable scene. Our hooded protagonist obsessively stalks Lindy (looks like someone's been taking tips from a certain Edward Cullen) until she has to go into protection when her father shoots a mugger, whose brother swears vengeance on poor Lindy. I'd like to add that this plotline goes absolutely nowhere.

I'm not kidding when I say that the only positive thing I could possibly say about this film is the presence of the lovely Neil Patrick Harris ("Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"). He plays Kyle's blind tutor, his character given all the good, funny lines in the downright appalling script by director Daniel Barnz. In fact, even Harris' character becomes irritating after a while, being the butt of every blind joke and wisecracking about damn near everything.

"Beastly" is teenage fantasy romance at its agonising worst. Struggling even to entertain for 80 tedious minutes, it's annoyingly misguided, slothfully directed, blandly acted and slapped silly with a script that's even more ugly than its deformed main character. Teenage girls the world over will no doubt love it, but they're, like, dumb and stuff. LOL ;-) xx

2/10