You know when you remake a movie, you’re supposed to put a new look or a clever spin on the story.  The writers of Beastly took that to heart, but despite their efforts, this one falls completely flat.  The Beast gets a new look, but not one that evokes fear and the spin on the story which involves a reject from Buffy The Vampire Slayer playing the witch, is neither fresh or even entertaining.   The star Vanessa Hudgens, who came to fame through the High School Musical movies and leaked sex imagery, is almost unrecognizable as an attractive girl, and Alex Pettyfer, the beastly lead, is nothing more than a walking headshot (forced to expose his abs at indiscriminate times ala Twilight).

Beastly is the retelling of the Walt Disney tale except this time based in current day Los Angeles.  Playing the spoiled lead character is Kyle (Pettyfer), a handsome, popular shoe-in for senior class President embattled in an election against the noble but ‘boring-to-her peers’ Lindy (Hudgens).  Lindy is a girl of substance which is clearly not visible to a guy like Alex who is consumed with his looks.  When the resident goth-reject (played convincingly from a looks perspective by one half of the Olsen twins, Mary-Kate) feels his ego has gone too far, she places a curse of ugliness on him and his world falls apart.  Remanded to a distant flat in the out skirts of LA by his father, he happens upon a chance to save Lindy and convince her father to allow her to stay in his keep.  As time goes by they build trust, a relationship and eventually love which is what’s needed to break the curse.  Like the original, there is a time factor in place; Alex has one year from the date of the curse to find love or stay a beast forever.

This one is gonna fall so hard they’re going to hear it in China Monday morning when the box office numbers hit.  Pre buzz is billing this as the Twilight replacement for the teen/tween crowd, but I have to believe even they are smarter than this.  A cheesy pre-sold soundtrack that comes in almost every fifteen minutes like clockwork, leads that have chemistry at the wrong time, it just doesn’t click and you’d think with a 95 minute run time that would be easy to do.  Oddly the kismet between the two leads is stronger when they are both human than when Kyle is beastly.  Shouldn’t it be the opposite?  What the hell is going on with that prep-school they attend?  It looks more like the corridors of Gap intermixed with the Museum of Modern Art, complete with 6 foot billboards – the production designer should be shot.  Even my friend Sharon (a diehard lover of the romance-thriller genre and heavy reader of US Weekly & People) remarked how unattractive Hudgens was made to look, and how unrecognizable she was thanks to the horrible bangs in her hair.  Was anyone thinking on the set of this movie?  How about the deal that sends Lindy to the Beast?  In the original it was the heroine trading her life to save her father.  In this iteration, it’s the Beast convincing the father, who he’d just met in all his warped beast-faced glory, to let Lindy stay with him.  Granted the father had just committed second degree murder, but come on – what Dad would make a deal like that?

I like to find some good in everything bad, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t draw attention to a second act portion of the film where Kyle deletes himself from the school Facebook system.  It played out very well because I was able to feel the liberation that would be associated with ‘deleting yourself’ and the loneliness and solitude it would bring as it did for Kyle.  Still, it doesn’t save this weak remake, and movie audiences are not going to be happy.  CBS Films has had a rocky start to their studio inception.  Films like The Backup Plan, Faster, and Extraordinary Measures did modest from a box office perspective, this effort guarantees that tradition continues.

2 Stars out of Five.

Beastly is rated PG-13 for language including crude comments, brief violence, and some thematic material.  Running Time: 95 minutes

Even though the inevitable re-re-release of Beauty and the Beast is on it’s way from the folks at Disney, CBS Films have took it upon themselves to breathe life into their own monster in the form of the book adapted film Beastly. Originally a novel written by Alex Flinn, this feature and re-telling of the fable of sorts for a more teenage orientated audience stars the likes of Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer, Neil Patrick Harris, Mary Kate Olsen and others.

A modern-day take on the “Beauty and the Beast” tale where a New York teen is transformed into a hideous monster in order to find true love. Coming out in July 30, 2010 from director Daniel Barnz, here’s your first peek of photos from said film below:

Gratuitous

Something about Carla Gugino is very foxy. I’m not sure if it’s the Old Hollywood aesthetics or her dressed as a superhero in Watchmen, but something is downright hot.

While we’re on the subject of Carla Gugnio, she has just been added to Zack Snyder’s (300, Watchmen) upcoming Warner Bros. drama Sucker Punch.

Centering on a girl (played by Emily Browning) who is placed into an insane asylum by her evil stepfather, the girl retreats into an alternate reality as she learns to cope with her new-found predicament.

Cugino will play a nurse who (what) becomes (for) a (it) a madam at a brothel in the girl’s alternate world.

The film also stars Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Jena Malone and Abbie Cornish.

Sucker Punch is targeting a March 2011 release and begins production this fall.

Many fans of Watchmen director Zack Snyder will be happy to know that he’s still going strong in the live action movie circuit, despite him helming the Warner Bros animated feature, Guardians of Ga’Hoole. His latest original creation, Sucker Punch, has finally found the actress to fit the bill for the lead role. Previously the role was offered to Mamma Mia’s Amanda Seyfried, but unfortunately the blue eyed actress had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with the latest season of HBO’s Big Love. Now, Snyder has re-casted the lead to be Emily Browning (The Uninvited).

Sucker Punch is set in the 1950s, circling around a girl who is trying to hide from the pain caused by her evil stepfather and a lobotomy. She ends up in a mental institution and while in there starts to imagine an alternative reality. She plans to escape from that imaginary world, but to do that she needs to steal five objects before she is caught by a vile man. (Courtesy of IMDB)

Those among the cast so far are Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical 3), Evan Racheal Wood (The Wrestler) and Emma Stone (Superbad). The film is set to release on October 8, 2010.