Beautiful Creatures Movie Review

So you may (or may not) have noticed that the review I posted for Beautiful Creatures last night is now gone. I have a very good reason for this.

Last night when I was writing my review, I was still slightly angry after seeing the movie and most of the things I wrote were negative. This morning, however, when I woke up, I read over my review and realised that I hadn't put enough emphasis on the amazing parts of the movie. I also sat and thought about the movie a lot this morning, and once I got over my initial reaction towards the movie I realised that I did enjoy it. So I thought I would re-do my review because I have a lot more to say about it today.

Like any book to movie adaptation, there are amazing parts, parts that were missed out, parts that were slightly changed and parts that were completely changed. And this movie was no exception.

The first thing I noticed about this movie was how amazing Alden Ehrenreich was at portraying Ethan Wate. Seriously, he completely blew me away. He captured everything that made Ethan who he is and he was just perfect.

Alice Englert was spectacular as well. She was the perfect Lena. People can moan about her all they want - 'she doesn't have black hair!' - go see the movie and you'll realise that the hair doesn't matter. What matters is the acting, and Alice was magnificent. She left me speechless most of the time because her portrayal of Lena was just exactly what I had imagined.

Link was a brilliant character as well. Thomas Mann did a great job at playing Link, but I do wish that Link had been in the movie a lot more than he was. I was quite disappointed with the lack of Link and Ethan's relationship because that was one of the most important parts of the book and a part that I really loved. So I was slightly let down by the lack of Link.

I don't think I have the words to describe how much I loved Emmy Rossum's portrayal of Ridley. Ridley was the character I was most looking forward to seeing and I wasn't let down. The minute she entered the movie she started causing chaos and destruction and I just loved her. Moan about her hair all you want, but you cannot deny that Ridley was bad-ass in the movie. The only thing that I was slightly annoyed about was the lack of the cherry lollipops  I think there was one scene where she has it for like a couple of seconds and that was it. It was what made Ridley who she was, but I think it might have been taken out because they went a different way with Rid, so I can forgive them for that.

I don't have a lot to say about Macon except for - HOW AWESOME IS JEREMY IRONS? 

He was just the most amazing Macon, EVER.

And then we have Amma/Marion. I didn't like this combination at all. We completely lost the Amma from the books, with her crosswords, her baking and I just wish that Amma had been what she was like in the book. The other thing we lost with this combination, was Ethan's connection to his mother through Marion and the library and I felt that it was such an important part of the books that they should have kept the characters seperate.

Sarafine was as crazy and awful as she was in the book. Emma Thomson did a great job as Sarafine/Mrs Lincoln. Mrs Lincoln is one of those characters who comes across as evil because she is so driven by her beliefs that she discriminates against a lot of people, so Sarafine possessing her was just perfect. She was over the top as Sarafine and to be honest, I really enjoyed it. She was a great character as well.

So now we're onto the storyline.

So there were some spectacular scenes in the movie that I absolutely loved, like 'The Window Scene'. I always loved that scene in the book, so seeing it in the movie was breathtaking. The way that Savannah and Emily were taunting Lena was horrible, but it was needed to have this scene be as amazing as it was. This scene gave me shivers and I just absolutely loved it.

The other scene that i really enjoyed was Ridley's claiming. Seeing her turn from this young, innocent girl into a dark caster was brilliant. And then seeing her use her siren powers gave me chills.

And then we had the dining room scene. This was my favourite scene in the whole movie. The face off between Ridley and Lena was beautiful. It showed Ridley's feelings about Lena and revealed a lot of secrets that had been kept from Lena. We also got to see more of Ridley and Lena's powers and their fight was spectacular. 

There were a lot of cute scenes between Lena and Ethan and I loved their interactions. They were such a sweet couple and I just wanted everything to work out for them (even though I already knew what happens - or so I thought). They were such a solid couple and they had so much on screen chemistry that they were so believable.

The snow scene with Ethan and Lena was so adorable. They're just such an amazing couple! AND THEN THEY RUINED IT! 

The ending was the only part of this movie that I honestly didn't like. I mean WHAT THEY HELL WAS THAT?! SERIOUSLY, COME ON!

Ok, so I'm going to tell you exactly what happened, so if you want to know, highlight the text below. But be warned - it may be a MASSIVE spoiler if you haven't read the book, and it's a slight spoiler if you haven't seen the movie (It's basically what happens at the end of the book, but much different).

So the ending was completely different from the book and I hated it. In the book, Lena's claiming is hijacked by Sarafine, Hunting and then that whole thing with Larkin actually being a dark caster. And then Sarafine stabs Ethan and Lena uses the spell in the Book of Moons to bring back Ethan, and ends up killing her Uncle Macon instead. So yeah, none of this happens in the movie. In the movie, Link and Ethan are in the re-enactment of the civil was and they are the only two people in Greenbrier. Link is under Ridley's spell and loads a real bullet into his gun. Ethan decides that he and Link should just shoot each other so that they can go home and watch a movie (Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that Lena wiped Ethan's memory and he has no memory of their relationship whatsoever!). So when Link shoots Ethan, he actually shoots him. Lena feels it right away and runs away from her claiming party thing to find Ethan. So when Lena arrives, she's distraught because Ethan is dying and she gets angry at Link. And then Sarafine and Ridley show up. They planned this all along to make Lena turn dark. Lena goes crazy and starts a massive storm that looks like it killed a hell of a lot of people and was quite a big over-reaction. She also makes her claiming moon disappear (or maybe she claimed herself, I'm not too sure what actually happened at that part - it wasn't really explained). So then Ridley begs Lena to let her go, she says that Sarafine tricked her into believing that Lena was going to go dark no matter what. She also played the sympathy card saying that when she knew she was being claimed dark, she ran away to protect Lena. Lena allows Ridley to go. And then, from what I saw, I think Lena killed Sarafine, which should not have happened! She's in the rest of the books! So unless they find some explanation for how Sarafine manages to come back, they've completely ruined it!
And then the whole thing with Ethan dying was absolute crap! It wasn't even Ethan! Ethan Wate was at home... sleeping! YES, SLEEPING! HE WASN'T EVEN THERE!

The Ethan that got shot was actually Macon disguised as Ethan. And the Macon you saw was actually Larkin disguised as Macon. It was just, terrible. The ending in the book was way more moving than that ending. I didn't have any tears and I wasn't shocked when it happened like I was in the book and I just felt that they completely ruined the ending! The ending in the book was spectacular and this ending was just, meh. It could have been so much better, and I really wish that they had stuck to the book with this scene.

So yeah, I didn't like the ending at all (and wow, that's one looong spoiler!).

And then the very end when Ethan gets out the car and shouts 'LENA!', I was like NO! NO! THAT IS NOT HOW THIS HAPPENS!

But overall, when I think about it, I did really enjoy the movie and I'm definitely glad I went to see it. The acting was superb and yeah, I loved it (apart from THAT ENDING. I will never get over that ending.)

I definitely recommend going to see this movie, but keep an open mind (unlike me) because the movie is so different from the book, but it's amazing in it's own way.

Have you seen Beautiful Creatures yet? If you have, what did you think?

If not, will you be going to see it at some point?