The Lovely Bones

I’m back, finally meeting a deadline that I set to have The Lovely Bones watched and reviewed by Tuesday. Now that I’ve got quite a bit of free time on my hands, I plan to review more frequently. Hopefully you won’t get sick of hearing from me.

So as I sat down in my seat to watch The Lovely Bones, I wasn’t sure if I would like it or not, just because most of the critical reviews have been negative. So, I told myself that I would give it a chance, not to judge it until it was over, then I would decide from there whether it was worth the film it was printed on.

So the movie began and we’re introduced to the Salmon family. We meet Susie Salmon as a little girl and we watch her grow (albeit fast). Then suddenly, Mark Wahlberg crosses the screen as Jack Salmon, Susie’s father, and I got excited. I have always liked Mark Wahlberg, even though he has made his fair share of stinkers, but I’ve liked him ever since The Departed.

Susie then talks about how she was murdered when she was fourteen years old and about a half hour in, we see the event (even though it’s not entirely clear until near the end just how it was done). We’re introduced to George Harvey, the murderer (played by Stanley Tucci), who did a fantastic job at playing a creepy old man. He reminded me of Ted Bundy how he would act all
nice and lure in young girls.

The movie is mostly about Susie crossing over and being in between heaven and earth and trying to come back. It’s also about her family coping with her murder, her father taking the case into his own hands and tracking people, her mother wanting to let go but can’t, and the police trying to figure out just what happened.

As Susie is in the middle, she meets a girl named Holly, and eventually several other girls and they kind of guide her as to what she needs to do, but she doesn’t want to listen and, like I said earlier, she wants to come back.

You know, there’s not much to say about this film as it wasn’t as deep as you would imagine it to be. Did I enjoy it? Yes, actually I did. Did I think it was a little full of itself? Maybe a little bit. There were several scenes that were brilliant, and others that made me roll my eyes in unbelief. The ending was fairly cheesy in my opinion, but if you want to know how it ends, then you’ll just have to see it. The editing was very well done, I will give it that. The plot was just so-so, it could have had a lot more depth to it, but who am I to judge?

The acting was outstanding. Everyone in this movie fit so well and it made you forget that you were watching a movie instead of an actual family dealing with the pain together. I don’t think it will be up for any Oscars, but it should at least get a mention.

Overall, it wasn’t bad, it was better than I thought it would be, and I am glad that I finally saw it, being that I’ve been waiting to see this film for a while, ever since I heard Peter Jackson’s name attached to direct. It definitely wasn’t Lord of the Rings good, but it was better than King Kong in my opinion (which I know that I’m in the minority on not caring for King Kong). I give it 7 out of 10.

Next up is The Proposal and don't forget to vote on my latest poll.