The Lovely Bones

[modage]

I saw this too.  I'm really shocked at how many bad choices PJ made here.  The whole thing is shot from a kind of hazy distance which doesn't allow you to be present in the scenes.  In the beginning you can't really enjoy Suzy being excited for her date because you already know she is going to be SPOILERS! raped and murdered before then.  After the murder we only get faraway glimpses of the family dealing with the grief but never really feel what it was like for her sister or parents because the film spreads itself too thin keeping up with Suzy's afterlife and the murderer's latest creepy activity.  The scene itself intercut with her family eating dinner and every time it cut to the family I hoped that would be enough and it would not cut back to her, but it continued to.   For most of the movie I thought it was okay but the entire ending is just terrible.  Also: what is up with the 70's rock tunes?

[Pozer]

This movies a mess. The last hour makes no sense.

PJ needs to get fat.

^two for twosies. best review of this film so far.

[Stefen]

It's been over a day since I saw this and I'm still pissed off. The most frustrating part is that it doesn't start off too bad. It stumbles a bit but you always feel like it's going to get going and everything is going to be alright, but it never does.

I have absolutely no idea what the point of the police detectives were. Did they do any sort of police work? All they seemed to do is tell the family they need to move on. Shittiest detectives ever. Where's the loose cannon who drinks too much and takes it upon himself to find the killer AT ALL COSTS?

Did the score EVER let up? Wahlberg could have farted down in the basement while playing with his model boats (HAHA) and the score would have swelled.

What was the Grandma's point in this? Was it just to give Sarandon a gig? She did nothing but smoke cigarettes and paint her toenails. And the little brother? Did he just disappear half-way through the movie? Their little boy goes missing but the family is so distraught about their daughter being missing that they don't even notice their other children are disappearing one at a time.

And how the hell did the sister and the dad ever find out that Harvey was the killer? It's like a gust of wind happens and then they go, "My god! It was Mr. Harvey!" then the score swells. AWFUL. I can't remember anyone finding any sort of clues. The sister breaks into the killers house and just happens to think to look for a loose floorboard and just happens to find it? Gimme a break.

And heaven? I'd be more entertained sitting in a dentists office reading the September 2005 issue of Good Housekeeping than I would being in heaven. How boring was that? $100 million for THAT? Gimme a break.

And by the end absolutely NOTHING gets resolved. That ending was a complete cop-out. What was the point of the corny foreign boy and that clairvoyant headcase chick anyways? Made no sense.

The death of Mr. Harvey feels so forced. Like it was tacked on at the last minute just because people were SO mad that nothing got resolved.

I'm pretty pissed off.

[picolas]

*spoils*
the novel makes all those things make sense. the seemingly useless characters have much bigger archs. it's really an anti-detective story because it's more concerned with how the family moves forward and what comes out of death rather than simply who gets justice/a whodunnit, even though at first it appears it'll be about finding the killer. jackson just completely fucked up the importance of everything.

[I Love a Magician]

And heaven? I'd be more entertained sitting in a dentists office reading the September 2005 issue of Good Housekeeping than I would being in heaven. How boring was that? $100 million for THAT? Gimme a break.

IT'S NOT HEAVEN IT'S AN IN-BETWEEN DIMENSION

[john]

*spoils*
the novel makes all those things make sense. the seemingly useless characters have much bigger archs. it's really an anti-detective story because it's more concerned with how the family moves forward and what comes out of death rather than simply who gets justice/a whodunnit, even though at first it appears it'll be about finding the killer. jackson just completely fucked up the importance of everything.

MORE SPOILS

Yeah, I had that feeling throughout the entire film. It felt that there were arguments for forgiveness and transcending pain and personal redemption following personal loss that would have won me over if they'd been articulated clearly, sensitively, and with a bit more insight... instead I just kept thinking "fuck that.  An icicle? And everything's great because the wife flaked out then came back home... and the sensitive dude got his nut off with the weird girl? Doesn't chance that your daughter was still RAPED AND MURDERED" But I could have just as easily been convinced of all those things if Jackson had a better handle on any of it.

I still stand by Wahlberg and Tucci being totally solid motherfuckers, though.

I also was pretty disappointed with the score... the only high point was the cornfield scene where Eno incorporates that amazing, claustrophobic machine-gun guitar riff from Baby's On Fire over and over... but that shit is nearly forty years old.  Find a new riff, Eno!

[matt35mm]

This was the worst movie I've seen in a long time.  It's really disappointing because I like Peter Jackson a lot, and the book was all right (not great, but it had some nice moments and was entertaining).

SOME SPOILERS, BUT YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN THE MOVIE ANYWAY SO WHATEVER

There are multiple moments of incredibly drawn out stuff intercut with other drawn out stuff, making it very tedious to watch.  For example, when Mr. Harvey drags the safe to the landfill, it's intercut with Susie finally getting to heaven and then deciding to turn back so that she can mack on Ray through the other girl.  It keeps cutting to Harvey maybe 10 times over a course of 5 or so minutes, and he's only rolling the safe about 15 feet.  I don't need to see all 15 feet of that.  In slow motion.

The movie holds on stuff like this forever, which forces the writers to cut out basically half of the story with all the other characters.  They could have fit much more of the story lines in the film, and have the film make a lot more sense.  As it is now, it's like a failed exercise in how far you can cut out and still be coherent.  Genuinely baffling, considering how economical this team was in adapting The Lord of the Rings.  They cut out the fact that Susie's mom runs off with the detective.  As it is now, she's sorta gone and then she's back, and you don't even care--you barely remember she left... I think there was just a shot of her going into a taxi, then at the end of the film she comes back with a different haircut and everybody misses her.  She had one of the more interesting emotional journeys in the book, and it's reduced to this.

Heaven/The "In-Between" doesn't even look very good!  There's really bad CGI in this movie, which is so strange considering that it's from Peter Jackson!  Was the post rushed or something?  I don't just mean the stuff that could be argued wasn't supposed to look real, but also, for example, Mr. Harvey falling to his death.  CLEARLY a CG body!

And as martinthewarrior said, the tone is completely mishandled.  The editing is pretty bad, with way too many cuts and a strange pacing, rushing through certain parts and dragging other parts on forever.  It's also kind of hilarious when Susie finally gets to heaven and is surrounded by all these young girls that Harvey killed (do they go to a special chamber of heaven and have to live with each other forever or what?) and that song from Lost Highway plays.  Super distracting.

Every character is two-dimensionalized in this adaptation.  Mr. Harvey is just a green-eyed, almost supernaturally creepy guy, and that's it.  The family members are all character-less, except for the dad, whose hunt for the murderer is almost played for laughs ("Oh I think it's this guy.  No wait it's this guy.  I have his address, maybe I should just swing by his house.  Would that be bad?"), and then he all of a sudden remembers that his neighbor is a total creep, so it must be him.

Susie's narration is also pretty lame.  It's breathy for no reason, and has this faux wisdom that she never had when she was alive.  Her relationship with Ray is pretty dumb.  Rather than having it be anything like a real first romance, he is just reduced to being a perfect British prince.  I seem to remember in the book, he was sort of awkward, which made the romance kind of charming.  Now he just shows up at her locker and effectively says, "Girl, you fine," and thus is borne a romance that transcends Susie's death.

The only things that I liked about this movie were parts of Seoirse Ronan's performance (she's a really good actress and gives it her all, but can't always overcome the bad direction.  She also pulls off a perfect American accent) and the repeated imagery of the super-close-ups on fingers, which I thought was an interesting choice of a repeated image to link up certain parts of the film.  It evokes a sense that sometimes you have to handle things very carefully, and/or absorb feelings or an understanding through your fingers, which I thought was an idea that was appropriate for this film.  Everything else, though: bad.

[Stefen]

Heaven/The "In-Between" doesn't even look very good!  There's really bad CGI in this movie, which is so strange considering that it's from Peter Jackson!  Was the post rushed or something?  I don't just mean the stuff that could be argued wasn't supposed to look real, but also, for example, Mr. Harvey falling to his death.  CLEARLY a CG body!

Yes, the CGI at the end was TERRUBLE. It just felt lazy.

[modage]

SPOILERS

That particular CGI was terrible because it was done late in the game and Stanley Tucci wasn't available to come back to film after audiences demanded a more violent death.

[matt35mm]

And a good directorial decision would have been: no, I will not let some Homer Simpson Falling Down The Gorge bullshit into my movie.

There are also some other bad CGI shots that I noticed, but I can't remember specifically what they were now.

[Stefen]

Homer Simpson Falling Down The Gorge

BAHAHAHHA. YES.

[SiliasRuby]

Man, I have really low expectations now. Better or worse than Transformers 2?

[The Perineum Falcon]

Seriously, my gf is DEAD SET on seeing this movie and now I'm not so much wanting to......

[©brad]

Seriously, my gf is DEAD SET on seeing this movie and now I'm not so much wanting to......

Pas, you should break up with her!

[The Perineum Falcon]

haha, honestly, i owe her since i was responsible for dragging ourselves thru Nine for our Xmas day movie..... so, i'm surprised she didn't do the honors then.

"yeah, no no, it looks really good!"