ViewGuide

Created Jun 20, 2010 11:06AM PST • Edited Sep 26, 2013 12:04AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Barely OK 2.0

   Deeply unsatisfying, notwithstanding the top-drawer talent that created it, this adaptation of a celebrated novel proves that some books should never make the heavenly transition to the silver screen. Shame on Peter Jackson – the Lord of the Ring himself – for apparently thinking this was a movie where special effects were the critical success factor. Crime stories, even supernatural ones, rise and fall on character development and plausible tension, neither of which succeeded here.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Proving the axiom that bad characters are intrinsically more interesting that good ones, only Stanley Tucci’s serial murderer and Susan Sarandon’s alcoholic grandmother rise to greatness. Every other actor delivers replaceable performances, perhaps because they were fated to play unimpeachable characters. Even Saoirse Ronan’s murdered girl falls short of making us empathize with her.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

   Stanley Tucci was great, Mark Wahlberg good.

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

   Saoirse Ronan was very good, Rachel Weisz good.

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

   Susan Sarandon was great, Rose McIver good.

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Barely OK 2.0

    Peter Jackson must have been attracted to this project because of the opportunity to use his vaunted visual effects talents for the heaven scenes. Bad choice. While the heavenly scenes didn’t detract from the movie and were overly criticized in many reviews, neither did they make what is fundamentally a crime story interesting. Plus, several other scenes that required special effects just didn’t work, e.g., when the murdered girl’s spirit runs past a living girl.

11. Direction Pretty Bad 1.5

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music OK 2.5

14. Visuals OK 2.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.0

    The movie pulls its punches, lessening its impact. In particular, savage violence is implied, not shown.

17. Sex Titillating 1.8

18. Violence Fierce 2.4

19. Rudeness Salty 1.9

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.8

    The movie is littered with prosaic reality problems that have nothing to do with a murdered girl looking down from heaven. They all involve a middle-aged man. Here they are, from absurd to merely questionable:

    • He apparently builds and furnishes an underground bunker in the middle of a cornfield that doesn’t belong to him and sits near a school, doing so without apparent use of power tools or excavation equipment, after which corn grows on top as if nothing is amiss below. How did the farmer not notice this? Plus, the work effort just isn’t doable.
    • He rightly needs help moving a large safe from his car into a dump. How then did he first load this 500 pound object into the car by himself?
    • This single man lives across the street from a murdered teen girl and escapes police scrutiny after one interview. Really?
    • A smart teenager goes into an underground bunker with him. Even in the seventies, kids were well warned about not going off with strangers.

    Bull, bull, bull & bull.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.6

23. Biological Supernatural 3.1

24. Physical Surreal 2.7