Of Jennifer's Body

Some few weeks ago I'd organised to go see Frightened Rabbit in concert, sadly the lead singer became ill and our date has re-compensated to a date next year. However this still meant a night out with friends was needed. After a day of texting non-stop to figure out a film, me wanting to go see Fantastic Mr. Fox them wanting to see a horror such as Saw VI and Fourth Kind. In the end we settled on Fourth Kind because Fantastic Mr. Fox wasn't on late enough and I put my foot down about see a Saw. However my friends girlfriend took so long getting ready we missed our movie by about 20 minutes. So looked to see what else was on, this was Jennifer's Body. So we buy our tickets and wait 40 minutes to go in.

What followed a mix between really quite funny and almost tear inducing boredom.

Jennifer's Body is aimed at teenage guys. No doubts there. There is literally a scene halfway through where Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox start making out on her bed with closeups. The ironic thing is it's another 30 minutes before Megan Fox informs she goes both ways. Congratulations movie I believe we figured that out when you were attempting to eat the contents of her stomach (an act they both enjoyed I'd like to add).

The plot of the movie is that a band want to make it big so they decide to offer a virgin up to a demon to give them fame, because as the lead singer points out (played by the best thing in the OC and also this movie, Adam Brody) there are just so many indie bands around nowadays it's impossible for any of them to make it. However Jennifer is not a virgin and the spell goes wrong. Now Jennifer is possessed and wants to eat boys to maintain her beauty.

Due to the fact that this is a Diablo Cody we get her patented faux-teen dialogue just like in Juno (which won her an Oscar). Sadly this movie will not win anyone an Oscar unless they create one for Best Lesbian Kiss. When Amanda Seyfried's character, Needy, mutter's "Cheese and Fries" instead of "Jesus Christ" it gets quite grating. Diablo Cody's writing seems to almost perfect for a self concious indie film. Not for a horror comedy. Whilst there is some humour in some scenes, most of the time it falls tremendously flat. Diablo Cody thinks she being so fucking funny and witty but really it does come off like a 30 year old woman trying to hang out with teenage. Trying to forget about the inevitability of menopause and wrinkles. In fact some of the dialogue just kills the movie, when Jennifer starts spouting witticisms when she supposed to be the Alpha Bitch it just doesn't make sense. She's an airhead and completely stupid there is no way she could speak like an indie movie character. Needy we can forgive because she is stereotypical down trodden girl but Jennifer?

Diablo Cody wants this to be some sort of alpha female kind of movie. Sadly she fails at that. Instead of a pro feminist message we just get a girl who fucks people to get what she needs. If you want to see something that gives off good messages to girls about how to take control but give up your dignity by showing your tits to everyone then watch Veronica Mars, Buffy or hell even Diablo Cody's far superior Juno. None of those characters want to fuck everything with a cock because they don't need to assert dominance. There's something about all those characters that makes them good examples for girls. They're strong, independent and know what they want and know how to use they're given talents without having to rely on they're sex to get boys what they want them to do. In Jennifer's Body there is a line about tits being smart bombs, point them at boys and BOOM (at which point the scene from Crank 2 in the strip club came to mind and I giggled).

Speaking of Veronica Mars, Jennifer's Body is a reunion for Veronica Mars actors! Sadly neither of them were major major (both really only appearing in one season each) and if I recall never actually being on screen at the same time throughout the show (however when one of them was murdered in the first episode of the show that's forgiveable. Kyle Gallner (Beaver in Veronica Mars) was another of the few bright spots in the film. He was great in Veronica Mars and has a few very funny scenes in this as well as being the only real victim of Jennifer we get to see kind of onscreen. It also led to one of the best moments of the film if only for my friend's girlfriends reaction when just by climbing through a window he made her jump out of her skin (she's not a big horror movie fan)

Back to the film! It's completed disjointed. It's only about 100 minutes long but it feels like about 200. There at least 4 different closure points that could be had and the place we think we'll have an epic final encounter isn't actually the place of that encounter. Instead that happens about 10 minutes later and is far less cool. After this the film should be over. However no they keep it going for another 10 minutes for no reason whatsoever. What's worse is that the final final encounter takes place during the credits but with pictures an not film. Imagine the credits to Hangover but instead of being a cool little collection of funny picture it's actually something important to the plot which could have been filmed properly and not in this idiotic and doesn't actually make a statement other than apparently the actor cannot direct some kind of action/mass murder scene.

So what was bad about Jennifer's Body? It feels like it stretches on for eternity (and not in a good way like Lord of the Rings), it fails on almost level throughout the story (and not just the third act like Men Who Stare At Goats, but the entire fucking movie), it's not scary at all (unless you're my friends girlfriend), the dialogue just doesn't work, it's way to far up it's own arse trying to be cult classic (which hopefully it'll never get to be). Oh and Megan Fox can't act for shit. Also she's not that hot. Also Transformers 2 is shit. Making Megan Fox's good movies of the year a grand total of none!

What was good? Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm...............




Adam Brody?




That scene where Kyle Gallner got eaten juxtaposed with a sex scene (which has the line "am I too big?" and also some quite funny facial expressions as the guy thinks hes a sex god)





And yeah I guess the Megan Fox/Amanda Seyfried kiss was good. But it was soft core lesbian porn. Also the kiss was like 2 minutes long. You could just tell every guy in the room with his girlfriend was uncomfortable during it. Mostly due to that fact they were probably thinking "god I wish I could get her to do that"

Overall, Megan Fox's body is overly mediocre. Bad dialogue, it's neither overly funny or scary. It's pretty much the quintessential teenage boy movie. Most boys will go in there for Megan Fox, wishing they were the guy who saw her tits or made out with her. Inevitable cum all over themselves during the lesbian scene (or at least have a wet dream about it later) and just forget about all the bad points later. Luckily I didn't because I am critic and I say this film is bad. Not diabolically bad. Just bad, and boring. There's no cohesion to anything, it lacks the buoying talent that Ellen Page was in Juno and fails on all the levels that it was supposed to succeed apart from being a voyeuristic fantasy look at Megan Fox's cleavage.

2009 is going to go down as the year of Megan Fox. After slow motion running in the Transformers 2 and lesbian kissing in Jennifer's Body she's going to be every boys fantasy. However I'm here to say that shes' not that hot, she couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag and probably did use her tits to get the job. There are far scarier, far funnier and far better feminist movies out there. Skip out on this one if you know whats good for you. However if you're just going for the lesbian kiss knock yourself out, I assure you, there is far better stuff out there.

4/10 (for normal people)

837/10 (people who don't know how to find porn on the internet)


PS. Oooooh I remembered another positive! There's a really catchy song in the movie! Yeah that's it.