Friends, I have just received new demands. My colleagues say I’m being a troll. We have to be nice. Diablo Cody, and any bad comments toward her, must be saved for private and not told directly to her, and our compadres, whose souls shriveled while they watched the subject movie, will have lost time. But we can all still be nice. Meanwhile, screenwriting ideas like good dialogue, story structure, and likeable characters get packed up. But we can all be nice.
Well, I’m not being nice. I’m going to get in front of my Macbook, and I’m going to log on here, and I’m going to kick that sorry excuse of a film Jennifer’s Body‘s ass so hard, that the next Diablo Cody wannabe is going to feel it.
There’s a reason Quentin Tarantino’s dialogue works like it does. The man may indulge in himself a little much, but he gives his characters voices. One can distinctly identify with Hans Landa’s speech and mannerisms just as they can with Ordell Robbie. He might repeat themes, but Tarantino knows how to make strong, unique characters with snappy dialogue that fits them. They will make pop culture references, but none of them do it in a manner where it feels like one character talking to his or herself.
Diablo Cody fails miserably at this, as well as trying to write a film in general. Now I’ll admit I spat in the theaters Juno played in, but I approached this latest monstrosity with an open mind, hoping for something along the lines of Drag Me to Hell. That was my fault, as Raimi’s horror story was funny, smart, cheesy and actually engaging, proving that fun horror films should be left to people who actually know how to write a film. If Juno wasn’t enough evidence Cody had zero talent as a writer, then Jennifer’s Body needs to move up to Exhibit A.
Her characters have no voice except hers. Granted, that’s the point of view of anyone writing a screenplay, but Cody could have every single character talking in exactly the same voice if it served in any way whatsoever to drive the plot forward. These characters have no identity except that of the lead character: in this case, Needy (Amanda Seyfried). I beg anyone who enjoys self-torture and sits through this monstrosity to tell me five distinct characteristics of Jennifer, then identify one of them that is not visible in Needy. The only thing that differentiates them in this viewer’s opinion is that Jennifer dresses like a filthy whore and Needy wears clothes my grandmothers would find old-fashioned. Characters need characteristics to make the viewer characterize them. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra did a better job of dealing different character cards, and that was a big ensemble.
That same film also did a better job of structuring its story and lending some explanation to its plentiful elements. Cody just assumes we’ll buy that a bar catches fire for NO APPARENT REASON. What caused the fire, you ask? The film never explains but exploits the damage done for the duration of its own assault (also referred to as runtime). Another thing Cody forgets to share with us is how exactly Jennifer gets transformed into a boy-huntin’ psychopath in the first place. Sure, we see her tied, sacrificed, then murdered. And yes, some lines are recited to summon ‘the beast’. However, we never see the actual transformation from dead human to violent beast. My guess is that these are moments Cody wants us to take as “so cool it doesn’t need an explanation” (e.g. – think the chicken in The Hangover) but uses this for key plot elements and not a MacGuffin. It’s also incredibly easy to predict where the film is going with its opening scene – there’s no subtlety here.
But enough about the trash that is the screenplay, no one else seems to be helping make the film remotely watchable. Karyn Kusama sleepwalks through it, or she tried the best with nothing. Whatever the case, her timing is off and she’s not helping the film rise above the sum of its parts. Then, of course, we have Megan Fox as the title character (and she’s just as good here as she was in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen). She’s gorgeous and trashy, no doubt, but she’s also frequently laughable and despicable. Amanda Seyfried fares no better, which should be a Greek tragedy when one factors in what she did in Mean Girls. She just reads off lines, never giving them the oopmh or pizazz they need to effectively imply that someone could have meant them. Johnny Simmons looks like he’s in a completely different film as her boyfriend, Chip. Everything either shocks or bores him, especially the sex scene with Amanda. He also carries this spaced-out look all the way through the movie, like he’s still suffering from being in The Spirit. The same could be said for the rest of the cast that includes J.K. Simmons, Adam Brody, Amy Sedaris, and Chris Pratt. All of them just show up, decidedly bored and appear to be reading their lines off cue cards.
I’ll repeat what I said earlier about this film; Diablo Cody should stop writing screenplays. Her characters aren’t extensions of the leading player but are the exact same as them. Her use of ‘trendy’ dialogue is atrocious and no one in the real world talks like these people. Or should I say this person, because everyone is supposed to speak exactly like each other in her world. However, Juno started to tell a new story in its last thirty minutes, a fiasco that proves Cody can’t structure a film properly. Things are just supposed to happen and we, the audience, are supposed to be OK with it because we’ll be sprouting drivel like “you need a manny.” In the words of Myron Cope, I say “Mm HA!” Her future screenplays could be used to keep children on the streets warmed in the wintertime as they’re set ablaze.
This might feel like a personal attack on Ms. Cody, and while I will admit I am blasting her, it’s her film that just isn’t even remotely good. Outside of the venomous script, the acting, directing and everything else that goes into making a decent film is missed in this movie. It wants to be a callback to the ’80′s horror films but should have been shelved – Raimi already did that, perfectly, way back in May. So speaking of Jennifer’s Body being undeserving of a zero out of five stars, it gets the dishonor of being something worse.
GO TO HELL OUT OF FIVE STARS
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