In every aspect, from story to tone to characterization to visual aesthetic, it's laughably perfunctory, as though everyone involved were too embarrassed to give it more than a half-ironic token effort.
Hudgens is a likeable on-screen presence, Olsen a complete riot, and Pettyfer teases teeny bits of a performance as a genuinely unpleasant baddie that could be the making of him one day, should the right script come along.
Daniel Barnz's movie certainly doesn't have any inner depth behind its slick surface, but Neil Patrick Harris's nifty wisecracks, Mary-Kate Olsen's spooky glares and the brisk pacing means that Beastly isn't quite as hideous as you might imagine
Teens convinced that a pimple will kill their social life will find Beastly bracingly honest. It's the cynicism, not the phoned-in uplift, that works in this JV Grand Guignol.
CinemaDope
May 04, 2011
... tone deaf (do students today really say "hurl chunks" and "Too cool for school"?), predictably plotted, filled with drippy love songs that would embarrass Bryan Ferry.
