Jennifer's Body- Review
I'm disgusted by this movie and not in the way that it was designed for me to react. Disgusted in the fact that I gave this movie a chance at all. It's just so atrociously bad that I can't even begin to describe all the areas of problem. The closest thing I can describe it as, is a remake of Mean Girls mixed in with wannabe slasher movie themes. In all honesty, this movie was shite and I'm having a very hard time trying to think about what I saw and how I felt afterwards. We'll get to that in more detail later though.
This movie was written by Diablo Cody, directed by Karyn Kusama and features Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried.
The story follows the lives of two best friends with vastly different lives and examines the extent of their friendship as one night of 'fun' turns into months of tragedy.
The performances: Megan Fox plays the role of Jennifer, a seductress of a 17-year old with a bad edge. At first, she's your typical high school superstar with assets to die for and an attitude that get's under your skin like a flu vaccine. Later on however, her persona changes and unveils something dark and ugly. I like Megan Fox in other films but I just couldn't get past how the majority of her role was clichéd, predictable and frankly, boring. I hated the way that her character was made into this distasteful, narcissistic ditz. She could have at least made her role more promising with the slightest bit of intellect.
Amanda Seyfried played the role of Anita, better known as 'needy', the dorky and unlikely best friend to Jennifer. Like Jennifer, her character goes through a series of transformations but hers is way more drastic and powerful. Unlike Jennifer, Needy has depth and self-awareness. She doesn't flaunt her personality as if she has something to prove. If at all honest, her role could have been filled by any actress. Literally anyone.
The cons: It was expected for this movie to be scary but it was anything but. It was Diablo Cody's attempt at making a dark humoured, quirky film. While I enjoyed Juno, I just don't like Diablo Cody all that much. Her works don't impress me and this film is certainly an embarrassment to her resume. It just feels like an endless cycle of high school repetition or things with a theme of juvenile immaturity (in amongst teenagers and adults). She was trying way too hard and it ultimately lead to this film being a bust. Please get some new material. I will acknowledge very briefly that the gore was fine and exciting here and there but it just couldn't save this movie.
This film also just seemed to focus too much on glamour and the general appearance. To me, there just seemed to have been more time allocated to making sure everything looked good with the set and characters rather than what looked good in the script and director's vision.
A complete waste of time for an unsatisfactory and vacant film. If you're curious, don't pay for the DVD. If not, I would recommend finding a better film that achieves what this film, in many aspects, does not.
Score: 3/10.