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Centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family - and her killer - from heaven. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal.

Apparently the book is great. The movie however is getting slated... which seems weird to me because it's a Peter Jackson film and he's had a great track record.

I personally thought the movie was okay. The visuals were great (can't say too much) but the last 30 minutes were poor. There were too many loose ends that could have been tied up in much better ways, but for whatever reason, they seemed rushed and failed to justify an otherwise good story.


Pro's:
Very authentic looking 70's setting/props/clothing etc.
Excellent visuals and styles.
The young Saoirse Ronan was excellent and should get a good career out of this.


Cons:
Dragged on a bit.
Plot was being pushed in one direction and towards a certain character but for some reason, right at the very end, a huge detour happens and it seems to cheapen the closure.
Ending didn't feel at all satisfactory. Maybe the book version didn't adapt to the screen very well, but it ultimately felt like a "wtf just happened?" moment.

5.5/10
See it if it's free or you're a hardcore Peter Jackson fan.

Yeah, been hearing very "middle of the road" stuff about the movie.

I've not, but my missus has read the book a few years back now and still says it's fantastic. I seem to remember it being quite powerful and making her quite emotional (although that might just be because she's a girl, pffft). How will we ever know?

On a movie release theme Pete, and connected to a previous post of yours, the Radio 5 Kermode podcast is my most essential one, check it out if you've not already. There used to be an Ebert & Roeper one too before Ebert underwent surgery that was OK too but they pulled it a while back (must check if it's been updated.....)

Has Peter Jackson got a particularly good track record? I think the only thing I've seen of his is TLOTR trilogy. King Kong didn't appeal at all (no classic remakes do!), though District 9 sounded interesting.

Chez said:

Has Peter Jackson got a particularly good track record?

Bad Taste, anyone?

Chez said:

Has Peter Jackson got a particularly good track record? I think the only thing I've seen of his is TLOTR trilogy. King Kong didn't appeal at all (no classic remakes do!), though District 9 sounded interesting.

What you've essentially said there is:

LOTR Trilogy I saw but have not said if I enjoyed it or not..
King Kong I didn't see it, therefore my opinion here is invalid.
District 9.... see "King Kong".

Haha, well yes fair enough. But then that's why I'm asking! Is that his track record?

LOTR was pretty fabulous, if you exclude Elijah Wood and the greatest homoerotic undertone pairing since Top Gun. I'm not one of the literary nuts complaining about the missing Tom Bombadil or something, I thought it was an excellent adaptation to screen, don't really need to say much more.

As I said, remakes of classics never really appeal to me, and tend to be a pretty bad idea (see Psycho, The Wickerman, Italian Job, The Ladykillers etc. etc.) And finally I didn't see District 9, so maybe I missed a sterling piece of cinema there, though I heard pretty mixed reviews about it from people who did.

Based on that though, I wouldn't go into a Peter Jackson movie with immediate expectations. Am I missing some other worthwhile stuff that he did? Or shall I just chalk myself down as "not a fan"?

Just a minor chip in.

District 9 was ace, but he didn't direct it. Produced it, so his influence is there though.
Would definitely recommend checking it out.

(Haven't seen anything else of his, other than the last half of King Ding when it was on TV over Xmas and I was too bloated to get off the sofa to change it).

I thought The Ladykillers (Tom Hanks + co) was pretty good.
Hanks seems to be one of those actors that gets a lot of hatred because HE's GOOD!
But he assisted with Band of Brothers so he'll always be a fave of mine.

But yeah, District 9 got some negative comments amongst people I know because "it had too much CGI."
In my opinion that's an utterly bizarre complaints. I LOVE CGI in movies. Doesn't matter if it's District 9, Aliens, Avatar or Finding Nemo.

Maybe it's because I've dabbled in making stuff in 3D and I've seen how damn difficult it is to get the stuff on the green screen to flow with the real stuff. District 9 for was me was a work of art. Story be damned, the CGI was border-line perfect.



Which brings me back to The Lovely Bones... story detoured into Sucksville at the end but the visuals were fantastic. Everyone has their own vision of Heaven (not really a spoiler - Dave: We need some [Spoiler] tags) but Jackson managed to strike the middle ground perfectly and create something everyone could easily understand and relate to.

TL;DR Version... Looks great, story sucks, that's modern cinema for you