"Water for Elephants" - in theaters

I finished reading the book "Water for Elephants" on Friday. And then I saw the movie on Saturday. Needless to say, the story from the book was quite fresh when I sat down in the theater. Luckily for me, the movie stayed pretty true to the book, so I have very little to complain about on that regard.

The story centers around Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson), a veterinary student on the verge of graduation, when tragedy strikes in the form of his parent's death. It's the Depression, so no one has any money, and when Jacob finds out that all of his parent's assets (the house, the vet practice, the car) are being repossessed by the bank, he does the only thing he can think of: he runs away. He jumps onto a train car as he's walking along the tracks, and come to find out, it's a circus train! And they're in need of a vet!

So before you know it, Jacob is playing doctor with all of the animals in the circus' menagerie. This includes the horses, who are part of an act with the beautiful Marlena (Reese Witherspoon). Marlena is married to the ringmaster/equine director/circus owner August (Christoph Waltz). The only way to describe August is mentally ill. He has some sort of personality disorder that makes him charming one second and absolutely lethal the next. Marlena is good at controlling him, but even she can't on some occasions. Jacob notices this right away, and does his best at protecting both Marlena and the animals.

Back in those days, circuses went out of business, and when that happened, others would pull up and see what they could get off of them. For the Benzini Brothers circus, they picked up Rosie the elephant outside of Chicago. She is to become the main attraction for the show, but when trouble arises in her training sessions, August takes to beating the absolute crap out of her with the bullhook. It's really quite sad, and Jacob and Marlena bond with each other over her plight.

As the movie goes on, things get worse in the circus, in terms of relationship troubles and insubordination. I won't go into too much detail, because that might ruin the fun for you.

Performance wise, everyone did a pretty nice job. It was nice to see Robert Pattinson (or as I call him, Cedric Diggory) out of the "Twilight" scene. While I love Reese Witherspoon, I think she was a bit too old to play Marlena. In the book, it's obvious that Marlena is super young, even younger than Jacob, so Reese wasn't the best choice. But she's awesome, so it's not such a horrible thing. Christoph Waltz is a nutjob, and that's how August should have been. He's been getting a lot of crap for being too cartoonish, but that's how August was. So I tip my hat to you, sir.

On the CWeave scale, I rate this movie a 6.5. I enjoyed it immensely, but there could've been improvements. It's not one that I'll need to own, but it's worth seeing.

"Red Riding Hood" - in theaters

Catherine Hardwicke tried so hard to make another "Twilight" with this picture. I think she also tried too hard to be like Tim Burton. The result was a superficial copy of greater films. But don't get me wrong - it was entertaining.

The twist on this Red Riding Hood tale is that the Big, Bad Wolf is actually a werewolf. And it likes to terrorize a small town that no one knows the name of back in a year that they never actually mention.

Now, Amanda Seyfried plays Valerie, the daughter of a woodcutter (Billy Burke, aka Charlie Swan [Team Charlie, baby!]) and his wife (Virginia Madsen), who is promised to Henry (Max Irons), son of the wealthiest family in the village. But alack the day! Valeria is in love with Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), a woodcutter like her father and hence, isn't too keen about marrying Henry. Then there's Grandma (Julie Christie), who lives in a house in the woods outside the village limits, and if truth be told, is a tad frightening. You never can quite figure out what her deal is.

When the wolf kills a human for the first time in 20 years, the village flips out and calls in Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), who is a renowned evil hunter. He's actually quite the lunatic, not to mention religious zealot, who will hurt anyone and anything to kill evil. Which really doesn't make sense. He also has these silver fingernails, which are so disgusting that it made me gag slightly. Father Solomon makes matters worse, by announcing that the wolf is someone in the village, and the witch-hunt begins.

I must admit that the filmmakers do a good job of keeping you guessing who is the wolf. The only thing for certain is that it is NOT Valerie, mostly because she comes face to face with it.

As one can imagine, the acting is pretty terrible. But at least the actors are nice to look at. Max Irons is so cute you just want to pinch his cheeks, while Shiloh Fernandez is very intense, and looks so much like Joaquin Phoenix it's disturbing. And Amanda Seyfried talks breathlessly through the movie, batting her giant blue eyes at everyone.

So on the CWeave scale, I rate this movie a 6.5. It's funny, but as I read back through this, it seems like I hated the movie, when in fact, the opposite is true. I quite enjoyed it. And in fact, I'll probably own it when it comes out on DVD. No one's mad about it.

"I am Number Four" - in theaters

This movie has a horrible title. It should have simply been called "Number Four", dropping the "I am" bit. Alas, the filmmakers didn't get in touch with me before naming it.

Well... that, and it's based on a book of the same title. But I digress.

I had extremely low expectations for this movie, based on reviews that I read before viewing it. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Yes, the acting was bad, and the special effects were so-so, but it still had teen romance, action, and a supernatural element. That's all you can ask for, really.

The story revolves around "John Smith" (Alex Pettyfer), one of nine regal aliens from a destroyed planet (much like Superman). They're being hunted down one by one by these really evil things called Mogadorians, who are super tall and have gills on their faces. They also have sick senses of humor, something I didn't expect, which was sort of fun, in a twisted way.

Anyway, John lives with Henri (Timothy Olyphant), whom everyone believes is his father, but actually is more like his bodyguard. Henri keeps them moving and off the radar. They end up in the small town of Paradise, Ohio after an "incident" in Florida. Henri has several motives for going to this town, but doesn't feel the need to share them with John.

John starts at the local high school and meets Sam (Callan McAuliffe), a nerd who believes in the fantastic, and Sarah (Dianna Agron), a popular girl-turned photog loner, who is intrigued by John. Needless to say, they get together. This is technically a spoiler, but since you see them make out in the preview, I don't think it's that big of a deal.

As they go about living their lives in Paradise, the Mogadorians are coming closer and closer to finding John. Because they've killed the first three aliens, and John is number four. Meanwhile, a mysterious blond chick is also hunting for John and Henri while evading the Mogadorians as well. It's all more complex than it needs to be.

Like I said before, the performances are somewhat stilted, but hey! This movie is basically "Twilight" with aliens, so I'm not complaining. Plus, I LOVE me some Timothy Olyphant. I'll pretty much see any movie he's in as long as it's not horror. I might be the only person who watches "Justified", and based on that alone, I know that he could charm my pants right off.

So on the CWeave scale, I rate this movie a 6. Not horrible, but not fantastic. However, it did make me want to read the book series. And plus, the ending leaves it open to a sequel, which I'm not opposed to.

"Eclipse" - in theaters

I'm not proud to say that I saw this movie at midnight. But again, I thrive on all of that teen vampire angst and all-consuming love that how could I NOT go to the midnight showing??

That being said, I must admit that I thought "New Moon" was better.

Now, you can call me shallow, but I couldn't really get past the fact that Bella (Kristen Steward), Edward (Robert Pattinson, or as I like to call him, Cedric Diggory), Jasper (Jackson Rathbone), and Rosalie (Nikki Reed) all looked HORRIBLE. Bella's wig was wretched and never seemed to be brushed. Edward needed some serious manscaping on those eyebrows of his. Jasper just looked creepy, but worst of all was Rosalie. Couldn't they have at least TRIED to make her look like a natural blond? Speaking as one myself, I was really offended with her pitch black, really high-arched eyebrows. Plus, her skin looked gray like a zombie's, not white like a vampire's.

Jacob (Taylor Lautner) looked hot as shit though, and I was pleased that the girls screamed when he came on the screen but didn't for Edward.

But I digress.

As for the plot, I haven't read the book from start to finish in quite a while, but for the most part, the storyline ran parallel. In the movie they focused a lot on the creation of the vampire army, which I really enjoyed. And like the book, pretty much all Bella and Edward talked about was how much they loved each other and whether or not Bella was going to be changed and when. You feel for Jacob, hardcore, because he is SO the better choice, which even Edward recognizes, but Bella has her personality and life so tied in with Edward's that it's no contest.

This is why I find Bella Swan to be an appalling role model. A woman shouldn't lose her autonomy in a relationship, and Bella loses herself so completely in Edward, that when he leaves (like in "New Moon") she doesn't know how to cope, and simply becomes a shell. This is the definition of an unhealthy relationship.

That's my inner feminist talking.

So on the CWeave scale, I rate this movie a 6. Points off for the bad wig and overgrown eyebrows, but bonus points to Lautner, who has really matured quite a bit and is becoming quite the little actor. And he hardly ever wears a shirt. BONUS.