Lovely Bones

Ce film peut-il vraiment toucher quelqu'un et le passionner? Dans les détails, Jackson est une fois de plus excellent, par exemple, la représentation émotionnelle de la rencontre glaciale entre l'innocence la plus pure de l'enfance et la plus horrible des perversités humaines (le meurtre) est unique par sa crédibilité. Mais le collage multiforme qui suit le départ prometteur du film et surtout la conclusion des histoires soulèvent une seule et cruciale question : "Que diable l'auteur de ce film confus voulait-il dire ?" Les questions sur la signification des scènes et des personnages spécifiques seraient finalement une douzaine - mais je ne veux pas révéler quoi que ce soit. Je me pose donc une seule question sans danger : Quel était le sens du personnage comique de Susan Sarandon pour le concept dramatique de ce film ? Ou est-elle simplement présente parce que le réalisateur est fan de l'actrice ? Les échecs de The Lovely Bones ne sont pas les images fantastiques (qui sont belles en elles-mêmes), mais la vision narrative complètement éparpillée. (23/02/2010)

Jackson may be one of the filmmakers who can make whatever they want, but with this film, he has cruelly missed the mark. He has drowned a completely bland and uninteresting story in kitschy images that stink of plastic and are put on the captions of the Watchtower by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Only three things are decent: a) the haughtily sleazy Stanley Tucci, b) the arrival of the mother-in-law, and c) the spy in the house. The rest of the film, though not boring through and through, is a desperately empty spectacle. 2 ½. (28/02/2010)

Peter Jackson has lost his sense and has become a shallow megalomaniac with a tendency towards the kitsch. When it comes to the shallowness of the dialogues, Lovely Bones is like Emmerich’s 2012, and I’m not exaggerating, but in a wannabe intense drama this is a lot worse. Are we supposed to laugh with that scene about the clumsy grandma? It actually reminded me of that cringe-worthy Czech film Panská Jízda with Martin Dejdar. Is the film portraying coming to terms with the loss of a family member with dad letting himself be beaten up, mum going somewhere to the countryside to pick apples and the siblings behaving as if nothing had happened? Is Jackson taking the piss? The direction and performances are excellent, but what’s the point when every word uttered by the characters made me want to plug my ears and shake my head at how shallow and fake it sounded. When the smiling kids start walking among the cornrows, I was reminded of the terrible final scene of Knowing (but at least the plot of that one had some balls) and I just wrote off the film and decided to have fun with every incoming cliché for the rest of the runtime. PS: Anyone who dares to compare this film with The Fountain (it shares only part of the theme and Rachel Weisz), either positively (it’s just as good), or negatively (it’s just as bad), or to rate the visuals and the story better than Avatar’s is either stupid or blind. PS2: This is the same guy that made Braindead, OMG! (04/01/2010)

Unfortunately, exactly the type of film in which I feel as if someone had let me read “The Watchtower" all night, necrophilic romance edition. The script of the Holy Trinity of J-W-B is a salad made up of pathetic monologues and shabby dialogues without a single hint of lightness. PJ directs some passages typically (jumps to non-event details, expressive subjective perspective, involvement of a monotonous soundtrack), while sometimes there are even fairly solid scenes (searching Pederast's barracks - although logically meaningless, he nevertheless works masterfully with tension and dual perspective). The fragmentation of the narrative perspective is so unconceptual that it prevented me from taking anything in the film seriously and, most importantly, enjoying anything. The visual stylization is quite cheap in places; in fact, it might be worth considering whether the secret of impressiveness lies only in color filters, glowing halogens and "nice objects". Particularly the trick passages are way over done, disgusting, inconsistent, flashy, without any order (even if they had only a subtle hint of the association that would give them shape). The CGI screams sexlessness, such an excessive and at the same time absolutely "backdrop" artistic solution is not seen very often. The involvement of the music is utterly catastrophic - instead of amplifying any emotion, it makes The Lovely Bones into whining emo, from which only stupid sentiment sticks out. I understand that Peter is fascinated by "being between worlds" and that not all family films can be as brilliant as Braindead... and yet the template of a pedophile killer based on Rapist Glasses? In fact, this is low end and Jackson's worst film, and it is a testament to the gradual loss of judgement and self-criticism. (08/10/2012)

If there’s nothing happening, not even a death can change things (screenplay) and less often means more (special effects). The images we see are often beautiful, but also absolutely empty of emotion. It would never have occurred to me that Peter Jackson would end up suffering from the syndrome that accompanies the works of Tarsem Singh. But in the first half-hour it has everything it needs, including emotions, which are so important for movies like this. But this just makes the rest of the movie that much more painful, because this outstanding “prolog" just proves that the movie could have been different. For instance, more in terms of hints instead of spectacular CGI landscapes. (03/01/2010)