Madelyn Carter|Staff Writer
I could tell I was in for a treat Friday night when I entered the Beastly theater alongside middle school girls and their moms. I dragged four of my friends to accompany me to this “epic” movie, three of them were boys, all begging me to see the Adjustment Bureau, but I told them the newspaper needed my review; that’s dedication!
Director Daniel Barnz’s most intelligent decision in this movie was having the first scene be close ups of Kyle (Alex Pettyfer) working out shirtless. I myself fell victim to his dazzling abs, along with the thirteen year old girls around me. That might have been my favorite part of the movie…
Anyway, back to the plot. Kyle’s really conceited and everyone seems to love him even more than he loves himself, except for of course the evil witch, as they call her,(ironically they said it as a joke because she’s ugly but she really is one! haha?) Mary-Kate Olsen plays Kendra the witch, though I can’t really take her seriously because she always pouts her lips weird and because of these “Very Mary-Kate” spoof videos I’ve watched about her that make me die laughing. If you want to see it for yourself, click here.
Well as you’ve seen from the previews, Kendra casts a spell on Kyle, makes him ugly, and gives him a year for someone to tell him “I love you.” Kyle’s father Rob, (Peter Krause, star of the TV show Parenthood) basically ditches his son in a new house taken care of by a maid with a sweet Jamaican accent and a blind tutor, Will (Neil Patrick Harris). Kyle mopes around for five months but then decides to go to a Halloween party and bumps into Lindy, (Vanessa Hudgens from High School Musical, omg), who he then stalks creepily for the next month.
This is where the plot seems to be just skimming over the top, focusing just on Kyle and not into the scenarios it runs into along the way. Lindy’s dad is an addict and kills someone and Kyle awkwardly comes up and tells him Lindy has to stay at his house or he’ll tell the police. So Lindy stays with Kyle as he attempts to get her to love him and blah blah it’s so romantic blah, okay.
Neil Patrick Harris saves the movie for me at this point as a blind guy with sass; I loved him. His “chicks dig blind guys” quote woke up one of my friends who had actually fallen asleep during the film. Harris hasn’t been promoting the movie, so that may be an indicator that he’s not impressed with the level of cheesiness running throughout the movie.
Overall, I didn’t absolutely hate the movie, only because of Kyle’s sixpack, Harris’ remarks, and the jokes between me and my friends at some empty parts of the movie. Questions still sit in my mind like “How did the fact that Lindy’s dad killed a guy not be a big deal?” and “Why does their high school also seem like an airport?” In closing, this may be a “modern version of Beauty and the Beast” but there was no antagonist like Gustan or dancing tea cups and candelabras so I’d say it was just an ugly guy looking for love to reverse a spell. I give my “guilty pleasure movie” a C+.
