Pork Chop Express checkin' in with an incredibly late review of Peter Jackson's triumphant return to crybabies and special effects overload, The Lovely Bones. I'll keep this short since it holds absolutely no relevance. Now I'm not sure if this was supposed to be the epitome of a pulled punch, but it sure as hell comes off that way. As many people know, the story revolves around the murder of fourteen year old Susie Salmon and how her family ultimately deals with their grief. I haven't read the book, but intend to once I become a fifteen year old girl, so I can really only judge it on what I saw; and what I saw was a sentimental tear-jerker that lacked originality and the balls to show us the reality of dealing with such a loss. In the book she was raped and killed violently. We don't get that. We are also spared from seeing the mother have an affair with the lead detective, and the growth of the entire family over a period of several years. Now, I realize that you can't fully translate a book into a movie. It's just impossible. But I am worried when the themes of a book are so pared down as to make the film a contrived, manipulative piece of sentimental tripe that it can only hold a superficial comparison to the source material. And this movie does exactly that. It's shallow. It's out there just to get you to cry, or to feel grief, or to show grief. It lacks the strength and depth to really delve into these topics; instead we get some kind of poppy, censored version of the book that, really, doesn't connect on an intellectual level.
As far as performances go, Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci knock their characters out of the park, if only because Jackson's imagining of them are so simplified as to make them two-dimensional jokes. But the fact that they both actually make their characters more is a testament to their abilities as actors.
Cost breakdown:
11.25 on movie ticket
5.00 on gas
16.25? Nope. maaaaayyybeee a six dollar show somewhere, or at the dollar theater. Rent it or catch it on tv would be my suggestion.
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