The Lovely Bones

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by dvd_mazter

I recently watched it and loved it. I have never read the book so I don't know how good of adaptation it is but the movie is intense to watch and the performances are powerful especially Walhberg and young Saoirse Ronan. Oh, and Stanley Tucci also gives one heck of chilling performance as well. The story was amazing (it feels like two different films from time to time but Jackson handles beautifully) and visually, the film is incredible.

I give it a 9 out of 10........ definitely a must see and one I will be looking forward to watching again

I agree completely. This movie was much more than i expected and the performances where incredible. I never knew Tucci could creep me out that much. A beautiful and really the title says it all, "lovely" film

[toef]

Originally Posted by sfmarine

The ending was... I was expecting a lot more closure.

[Show spoiler]instead of Tucci falling off a cliff.

In case you (or anyone else that saw the movie) didn't read the book, and want to know about the ending....

[Show spoiler] It's taken directly out of the book, and the book ends that abruptly, with Susie having her brief monologue, finishing with the "I wish you all a long and happy life" line.

But earlier on in the book, Lindsey (the younger sister) goes to some sort of summer camp, and one of their assignments is to come up with the "perfect murder". This obviously bothers her, because of what happened to her sister, but one of her friends in her group came up with the idea of killing someone with an icicle, because it melts, and leaves no evidence.

So in the book, it was a crappy little side-story that obviously foreshadowed the ending. Also during the book, Susie was frequently trying to affect people on Earth, by making things happen around them. So maybe it's possible, I guess, that you can read the icicle part as her finally succeeding, by causing it to hit Mr. Harvey. But who knows.

I've mentioned earlier in the thread that I didn't like the book. I think I might actually like the movie more, only because of some cool visuals. It's at least on par with the book (in my opinion, of course).

[stayinonpoint]

I saw this movie as a free screening. I read the reviews from Rotten Tomatoes as well as other critics. The book was very engrossing. I was dissapointed at the fact that Peter Jackson filmed 3 Lord Of The Ring movies as well as King Kong (They all happened to be over 2:30 hours long) and didnt take the time out to do the book some justice. I enjoyed the way the movie was filmed. I hope everybody gets a chance to check it out...

"Stay Thirsty, My Friends"

[swifty7]

didn't like it and didn't care for it.....the first bad Peter Jackson movie...oh! I also didn't like heavenly creatures either so! I should say Peter Jackson's second bad movie. I truly hope Jackson is not a two hit wonder......I hope for his sake he's not.

[Kryptonic]

Loved the film. Intense and beautiful and serene and devastating. It manages so much with so little.

And Wahlberg should be getting some sort of nomination somewhere. He's great in this movie, which was a huge surprise.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by swifty7

didn't like it and didn't care for it.....the first bad Peter Jackson movie...oh! I also didn't like heavenly creatures either so! I should say Peter Jackson's second bad movie. I truly hope Jackson is not a two hit wonder......I hope for his sake he's not.

YOU! Go sit over there and think about what you just said. Seriously

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

YOU! Go sit over there and think about what you just said. Seriously

Yes! The very idea!...Saying that "King Kong" or "The Frighteners" weren't bad!
Now you just march yourself off, young man, and quit spreading such mischevious lies!

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Yes! The very idea!...Saying that "King Kong" or "The Frighteners" weren't bad!
Now you just march yourself off, young man, and quit spreading such mischevious lies!

I was referring to the part about Jackson being a 2 hit wonder. All 3 LOTR movies and Lovely Bones where fantastic.

[swifty7]

that's what I meant The Ring trilogy and King Kong both masterpieces specially The Lord of the Rings. I forgot about Frightners which is not bad either. We all have different tastes, for me KK is an excellent movie but many hated it the same way I didn't care for Lovely Bones or Heavenly Creatures......not my kind of movies.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by swifty7

that's what I meant The Ring trilogy and King Kong both masterpieces specially The Lord of the Rings. I forgot about Frightners which is not bad either. We all have different tastes, for me KK is an excellent movie but many hated it the same way I didn't care for Lovely Bones or Heavenly Creatures......not my kind of movies.

Lol, wasn't aware the trilogy counted as 1 by your math. Sorry

[Fighter]

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

Lol, wasn't aware the trilogy counted as 1 by your math. Sorry

Technically, it's one film, not three, do the math.

[Romulus]

Just got back from watching this.

I know quite well that the film hasn't gotten stellar reviews. A good friend of mine told me to check it out anyway. Having nothing to do this evening anyways, I figured why not?

To be honest I didn't read the specifics on why the film has gotten poor reviews. I didn't know beforehand if that was a direct result of people who had read the book disappointed with the adaptation or if the film had many flaws on its own. After watching the film, I feel that it's both.

I'm going to focus on the positives first before I get into the negatives. First and foremost: Stanley Tucci is what made this movie. His acting as the killer was quite stunning and haunting. I think they portrayed him very well, especially in the scenes where

[Show spoiler]he first sees the cops heading for his door and set up the dining room with food and a magazine like nothing was happening

. Beyond his performance, the acting by Saoirse Ronan was solid too. I see nothing but good things for her down the road, I can definitely see her being the next Anna Paquin. Heaven was also depicted beautifully. I really enjoyed how Jackson used elements of Earth to interact with Heaven. Examples being:

[Show spoiler]The beach ball floating on the water and ships wrecking against the shore

. Jackson's depiction of Heaven was certainly fascinating to look at.

Now for my issues. To me it seemed like the last hour just seemed to lose itself. It was like Peter Jackson wasn't sure which direction to go with the film. I was able to follow everything just fine the first hour, the second half had scenes that were completely pointless. I would be watching one scene thinking it would lead to something else then it ultimately never did. I also had issue the with the mother.

[Show spoiler]Everyone else in the family is suffering with the loss, yet she leaves to get as far away as everyone else and leave her kids behind? I know the father is still there, but I found it a very selfish move

. If there was any reason to why she did that, I think a little more development of her character would have been better. Also more complaints:

[Show spoiler]What was with the cops? They're part of the investigation and then all the sudden they're gone. I know in the book they explain that they close the investigation... but left it out of the movie. Then at the very end they come Stanley Tucci's house and tape it off, but you ultimately don't seem them pursue him at all. Which brings me to my next point, I strongly disliked the ending. He dies with an icicle hitting him then falling off a cliff? Seems very anti-climatic to me. I know it's supposed to represent Susie Salmon getting back at him, but don't you think it would have been in the greater interest of her loved ones that he gets captured? It also seemed really off to me that all the other people killed by him weren't as emotionally involved as Susie was. Could it be that they gave up on it a long time ago? It's possible, but I think it would have helped if they told Susie it was time to move on.

Those are the big reasons why I didn't like it. I haven't read the book but read the synopsis on Wikipedia, and it looks like it's the far superior version.

Overall a 4/10.

[jsummers157@]

I, too, just saw this film tonight and thought it was pretty good. I am surprised at all the negative reviews. I agree that the book is better, but the movie is pretty decent as a thriller and a sentimental drama. Particularly, the scenes where she is in the "in-between" are fantastically imagined and executed with CGI and both the main girl and Stanley Tucci give excellent and chilling performances.

[toef]

Originally Posted by Romulus

Those are the big reasons why I didn't like it. I haven't read the book but read the synopsis on Wikipedia, and it looks like it's the far superior version.

Overall a 4/10.

My take on some of the stuff you brought up (to try to make sense of some of the book related stuff):

[Show spoiler] I think the mom running off is one of the strange things in the book. I guess the point is that people have different reactions to traumatic events. In the book it seemed like she lost her husband to his obsession with finding Susie's killer, and there are some allusions to her being this huge nerd in college, and getting married young/having kids kind of forced her to give up on her own life, and become a wife/mother. So I think she was escaping from her family, to try to get her old life back... or something. This is somewhat shown in the movie, where her and Wahlberg are college students, or recent grads (I don't remember) and she has a huge stack of books on the floor, and then that's replaced with her reading a book about parenting, while pregnant with their third kid. It's irresponsible, sure, but it's not entirely unrealistic either.

The killer dying un-climacticly was fine for me. Things don't always happen at the ideal time, or in an ideal way, they just happen. And as cliched as it sounds, Harvey being captured isn't going to bring Susie back for her family, but if Susie was behind it, maybe it was her chance to bring closure to it for herself. In the book it was mentioned that she was kind of in this in-between place, where she could watch over her family, but apparently to get to the real part of Heaven, she'd have to give up on watching over them, but the details of this part of the book are somewhat fuzzy to me. I know it's mentioned very early on in the book.

This whole "in-between" thing is mentioned in the movie when the little brother points to the drawing on the fridge (or wherever it is) and says how Susie is in that dark blue space between the sky (symbolically, Heaven, and the ground (Earth).

In general though, I agree with your review, but I'd probably give it a 6, because I liked the special effects.

[jebhdb]

Very good review of the film Romulus. I would have to say I agree with pretty much everything you had to say. In all honesty I liked the movie right up until the very end when basically the whole movie was ruined for me. The fact that

[Show spoiler] the killer never had to face Susie's family and be prosecuted for his crimes bothered me. I also hated that Susie's body wasn't returned to her family for a proper burial. It just seemed to me that Susie's family as well as the audience was denied closure. In my opinion if the ending had been done differently the movie could have been really good, but instead just left me sad and depressed.

5/10.

[WyldeMan45]

Originally Posted by jebhdb

Very good review of the film Romulus. I would have to say I agree with pretty much everything you had to say. In all honesty I liked the movie right up until the very end when basically the whole movie was ruined for me. The fact that

[Show spoiler] the killer never had to face Susie's family and be prosecuted for his crimes bothered me. I also hated that Susie's body wasn't returned to her family for a proper burial. It just seemed to me that Susie's family as well as the audience was denied closure. In my opinion if the ending had been done differently the movie could have been really good, but instead just left me sad and depressed.

5/10.

But the point is, not everything can be wrapped into a neat little package for this perfect ending. Yeah, the ending those went with was all the more tragic but I still loved it, and it felt more real to a point, like this is much more realistic of an ending than the one you wanted with the little bow on it.

[jsummers157@]

Originally Posted by WyldeMan45

But the point is, not everything can be wrapped into a neat little package for this perfect ending. Yeah, the ending those went with was all the more tragic but I still loved it, and it felt more real to a point, like this is much more realistic of an ending than the one you wanted with the little bow on it.

I agree. The book and movie are much more about dealing and coping with death and loss. It is not simply a murder mystery. The tragedy is not so much that she was murdered, or even that the killer was not brought to justice (in a sense), it was the impact her death had on her family, friends and community. Likewise, the point is not to have a typical ending where the father would kill her murderer, but to show the process of dealing with their grief and salvaging what they can of their lives.

[jjbsn5192]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Ive heard nothing but horrible things about it. its a shame since i was really looking forward to it

i didnt think it was Peter Jackson's Cup of Tea to make Lovely Bone's

he was better of sticking to

Adventure Storie's

i would've wanted him to do Clash of The Titan's !

[swifty7]

Originally Posted by jstasa51

Technically, it's one film, not three, do the math.

thanks for clearing it up for wyldeman.

also what annoyed the hell out me was the teen actress playing the victim....couldn't stand her.

[swifty7]

Originally Posted by jjbsn5192

i didnt think it was Peter Jackson's Cup of Tea to make Lovely Bone's

he was better of sticking to

Adventure Storie's

i would've wanted him to do Clash of The Titan's !

hell yeah!!! that would've been a fantastic story for Jackson to direct. I guess he wanted a bit of a break.