Remember when we leaked to those semi-nude photos of Megan Fox way back when, and how much we were looking forward to Jennifer’s Body because of said photos? Man…none of that was in the movie.
Not that that was the only thing missing in Jennifer’s Body. However, had that scene been as revealing as those photos, the film would have at least jumped up a notch in the awesomeness scale.
As it is though, Jennifer’s Body fails at what it sets out to you. What does it try to do? Well, by the impression I got from watching it, the cast and crew thought they were making the next Scream, with Diablo Cody playing the part of Kevin Williamson. What they got was more Cursed than Scream.
Full review after the jump!
In Jennifer’s Body, Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried are best friends…kinda. Jennifer (Fox) is kind of mean to her friend and really kind of a bitch. Needy (Seyfried) might have lesbian feelings for her friend. They go see a band in concert at a local hole in the wall, and Jennifer falls for the lead singer … of course she doesn’t know he’s a satanist in need of a virgin sacrifice! Problem is, Jennifer’s not a virgin, and when you try to sacrifice a non-virgin…well, you end up creating a monster.
Not that anybody expected great things from Jennifer’s Body. After all, this is the same woman who wrote the annoyingly mediocre Juno, and it starred Megan Fox. But the trailer for Jennifer’s Body made it seem almost like an old school fun horror flick, and with Amanda Seyfried and Kyle Gallner also in the flick, it couldn’t be that bad, could it? Well, it’s not that bad, but the film is damned annoying, and probably not worth watching.
I keep comparing the flick to something Kevin Williamson would write, and I think it’s a good comparison. Except that Diablo Cody is like a Williamson-wannabe, with characters simultanoeusly speaking intelligently, while sounding like idiots. When the kids of Dawson’s Creek talked like adults, at least they weren’t throwing in slang that, let’s be honest, real kids don’t use. Whenever someone opens their mouth in Jennifer’s Body, I felt the desire to mute the TV. Saying someone is “jell-o” instead of “jealous” is just annoying. It felt like they were trying to make quotable movie, and there’s nothing worse than trying to hard.
There’s an underlying thread of missed opportunity in Jennifer’s Body. The idea is halfway decent, the actors could definitely do better with better source material. Even the effects aren’t half bad, and the idea is sound. So what went wrong? The damn film is just annoying. It doesn’t feel natural – like I said, the dialogue, the story beats – it just feels forced.
The only part of Jennifer’s Body that I felt was good was the very end sequence, which I won’t spoil here. During the ending credits, we get a nice little send off that was actually pretty great. Sadly, the hour and forty minutes prior to it just weren’t worth it.
