Beastly isn't just a bad movie--it's an atrocious movie. It's worse than Twilight. The plot is loosely based on Beauty and the Beast, but takes place in a modern-day preppy New York high school. The updated setting requires some modifications to the story, and the writer decided to use all those opportunities to make it as terrible as possible. The movie takes the clichéd cocky, image-obsessed rich boy (Pettyfer) and pairs him up with the clichéd smart, hard-working loner (Hudgens). A witch (Olson) puts a spell on him to make him ugly and he has one year to find someone to love him. His dad (Krause) abandons him in a hermit home with a nanny (Hamilton) and a blind tutor (Patrick Harris) that have no purpose other than to give him trite advice.
Everything about this movie is offensively bad. The plot just doesn't make any sense. At all. It is literally impossible to suspend your disbelief for this movie. And it stacks on more plot holes and hackneyed "twists" to an already fragile foundation that make you throw your hands up in the air in exasperation. (The entire situation that forced them together is perhaps the most preposterous and aggravating part of the whole movie.) The third-grade writing combines with the weak acting to create a spectacle, and I don't mean that in a good way. It's more of a train wreck that has you rubbernecking as you pass by. It is really mind-blowing that something could be this bad. My best guess is that the dialogue is what a pre-teen imagines might sound cool and witty but is ultimately shallow and meaningless. Not only that, but the tone is inconsistent and the pacing is more painful than stop and go traffic. Is it trying to be funny, romantic, scary, emotional? Who knows? Certainly not the director.
Unfortunately, it's not all bad. And I hate saying this in my review, because that might give people some sliver of hope. But in all honesty, there are about 2 or 3 funny parts where I may have smiled and 2 or 3 lines that stood out and were probably put in by an editor or producer who was much more intelligent than the writer. That being said, avoid this movie at all costs. I don't care if you are a fan of any of the actors in this movie, it is just not worth it.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152398/