Perhaps one of the most disappointing film adaptations of a great book ever, The Lovely Bones is a bizarre hodgepodge of half-baked melodrama, ethereal yet vacuous imagery, and curiously edited scenes of terror. For about 20 minutes, Peter Jackson gets everything right. The scenes showing Susie in her normal life, interacting with her family and a crush, are perfectly contrasted with the slow buildup of tension. Then, when Susie meets her fate, the movie goes to hell. Susie ceases to become an interesting character once she's dead. The scenes of "heaven" and the "in between" are blank and uninteresting, and Susie begins to seem like more of an afterthought than anything else, despite some very good acting from Saoirse Ronan. Stanley Tucci also delivers a fine performance, although no attempts are made in the film to develop him further than a one-dimensional villain. The scenes of the Salmon family fracturing are botched. Mark Wahlberg is miscast and is never believable as a grieving father, while Rachel Weisz is barely in the film and Susan Sarandon's inclusion as a boozy, over-the-top grandma feels like it belongs in a different film. I can't say I'm terribly surprised after reviews started coming in from this film, but this is a complete missed opportunity to take an awesome book and turn it into a similarly great movie. C-

Wow, I didn't expect such a bashing from you for it.

I agree with you on one point: Weisz is wasted. The mother's disillusionment with, abandonment of, and subsequent reunion with her family had so much more depth in the novel. In the film, her move to California boiled down to one shot and five seconds of narration.

I disagree otherwise, though. I found the Heaven/"in-between" scenes INCREDIBLE, especially when Susie meets the other victims of Tucci's character.

I hope I'm not the only person to love this movie here... I also wonder how people who've not read the novel will react vs. those who have. For example, I wonder how the uninitiated will regard the final scene between Ray Singh and Susie.

According to an interview with Weisz A LOT of footage was cut from the film (like the affair she had in the book).

So I s'pose we can expect an extended cut in the future.

Not since American Beauty has a movie astounded me as much as this one did. The art direction was absolutely beautiful and the performances by the Salmon family were heart-breaking and wonderful. Stanley Tucci's performance was one of the best of the year. Only behind Waltz. Ronan played her part to perfection and is such a gorgeous girl. Peter Jackson does it again. I don't really understand how people could actually hate this movie.

10/10

Ronan was brilliant. Oh my.
Tucci was CHILLING.
The moments that needed to have suspense, were FULL of suspense.

There was SO MUCH in the book that wasn't touched... I'm assuming that's a major issue with the people giving it bad reviews. The Susie/Ray relationship wasn't really developed. The affair wasn't touched, only hinted. In fact, the only relationship that was built up was Susie and her father. Maybe Gosling could have done better with the role, but Wahlberg was good enough. Yes, it could have been SO MUCH more... But it was already 2+ hours. I thoroughly enjoyed what it was.

***.5/****

Even though a great deal of the novel's content wasn't featured in the film (I missed Ray Singh's mother the most), I thought this was a quality adaptation which truly captured the spirit of the novel. It honestly saddens me Peter Jackson is getting such a bad rap for this.

I second all of that

The Lovely Bones had many of the pieces needed for a great film but since not many of its points can be explained fully, the film falls flat. The performances across the board are pretty good with Mark Wahlberg and Stanley Tucci being the most notable. Saoirse Ronan falls a bit flat with her role as she ends up sounding almost too childish in her role. The basis of the film is a good one even if I haven't read the book yet. It was just too many points are left wide-open. Also the "in-between" was a little bit too special effects heavy and took a way a bit from the heart of the film. Also the ending is too anti-climatic with a certain character. Even after all the setbacks though, it is at times a heartfelt drama though with Jackson in the director's chair, it should of been a lot better. **1/2

4/10 -> D

Starts OK, but becomes boring pretty soon and remains that way all the way through the end.

Despite the potential of heaven, they managed to make only one poignant and remarkable scene (with the ships in the bottles), which was truly beautiful, but otherwise the heaven scenes were a completely wasted potential.

I haven't read the book, so I have no idea how much of it got cut, what got changed, etc. But the movie lacks character depth and the story is missing the sense that Susie's absence impacted those she left behind with something more than a whodunnit question. Also the scene where Susie gets her first kiss isn't even worth of Hallmark Sunday special, let alone a serious theatrical movie. They couldn't cut that?

The actors were pretty mediocre, including Tucci, who got nominated for the wrong movie in this year's Oscars.

I don't think much of Jackson as he failed with adaptations pretty hard before, but this definitely sets a new low for him.

A+

My new favorite film, holy shit. I love it.

BEST.MOVIE.EVER.

laughably bad.

Yeah, this is pretty damn bad. The pacing is uneven, the script is laughable (and I liked the book), and besides a passable Tucci the performances are weak. A spectacular failure.

D+

I really quite liked The Lovely Bones.

It's no miracle of moviemaking, but it's undeniably Peter Jackson's best movie since Heavenly Creatures.

I especially enjoyed that scene of the two girls running around the mini green grass planet.


5 out of 5.



[Edit: This should be a lesson to Christopher Nolan that you can return to serious filmmaking once you're done your kiddy movie phase.)

The critics must have watched a different movie with the same name. It might not be perfect but it surely did a lot of things right. I was at tears at the end.

B-


The Lovely Bones is one of 2009's most ambitious and daring films. It essentially turns the story of a raped and murdered girl into a fantasy fairy tale while dealing with some seriously dark themes. Peter Jackson is a director known for taking risks and being very ambitious and to be honest, in a way, making The Lovely Bones was an undertaking about as ambitious as taking on the King Kong remake or even the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Of course, the scope is much different here, but in a sense it is just as hard to put that stuff on-screen. The difference? Unlike with the previously mentioned film, this was not a real success.

That is not to say that The Lovely Bones is a full-on failure. It's not. Jackson does several things right and that, once again, shows off that he does possess some really good directing abilities. But he might have bitten off more than he can chew here. He has proven to be apt at adapting grand scope material, but he might be lacking some sensibilities for intimate human drama which is one of the aspects in which The Lovely Bones just doesn't deliver (though Heavenly Creatures shows otherwise). The best description for The Lovely Bones is "a glorious mess". Visually, it is a treat. Jackson's treatment of Heaven/Death is one of the more unique and spectacular ever brought to screen and it is mostly a joy to watch this parallel world unfold, even though there are a few misguided choices here and there. Also, the period setting of the real world is very well-done.

The heart of the film is Saoirse Ronan who proves that she is one of the best working actresses out there in her age range. However, her performance is never as powerful as it could be given the material. She does a solid job, but not much more. The rest of the cast, however, is where one of the film's main flaws lie. Rachel Weisz is a great actress, but her character is terribly underwritten here (I heard that a whole lot of the book's plot has been omitted in the adaptation, including some juicy stuff for Weisz' character). Mark Wahlberg does his best, but I always kept wondering how the film would have been with Ryan Gosling in the lead. Wahlberg's emotional range just doesn't seem enough for a character this complex. Susan Sarandon never came across as more than just annoying. And, ultimately, there's the Oscar nominated Stanley Tucci who has been undeniably better before and will be better in the future. He is not bad here, but delivers a rather by-the-book crazy villain here. His demise at the end of the film just looks ridiculous too.

So, basically the film is at its strongest when we spend time with Susie in Heaven, but whenever the focus shifts back to reality, it loses a lot of energy. It is pretty to look at, but just never packs the emotional punch a film with a premise like this one could have.

This movie had enough pointless effects shots to make Tim Burton puke, honestly what the fuck was this mess of a film. Every time the film got somewhat interesting with what was actually going on with the real world, it went to the most "stroking of cock and back simultaneously" montages.

Susan Surandon's montage of being a grandma is so out of context and bizarre I thought when I went to the bathroom I changed channels. And when the scene in Tucci's house finally happened, I was like great, then hit info and saw there was another hour left. I was like "WTF" how is this movie not resolved for another hour. It took Tucci and a huge bulky guy almost 25 minutes to move a 100 lb safe and the bone remains of a 90lb girl 15 feet. I couldn't believe what I was watching. Tucci's final scene is just beyond stupid and I don't care if that's how it happened in the book. It's just dumb and funny on screen.

All the real world stuff worked, and there was some great tension and Tucci is brilliant, enough if they cut everything else out it would have been a really good short film. Everything else shows that Peter jackson has way too much creative control. That's 3 overly long ego films in a row for him.

I wish I could wash this film from my eyes, mouth, and anything else.

F, my first F since in 5 years, which went to Bug