This recommendation of DVD-MUST-SEE features a movie many considered to be a sure miss. The ridiculous looking trailers had little appeal featuring Megan Fox displaying her wide range of acting skills, err I mean nothing but her sexuality (so, some appeal). Consider me one of this film's doubters. I recently had a chance to sit down and watch Jennifer's Body. The best way to describe it is a tale of two halves.
Jennifer's Body of course stars the very fine Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried as the film's two leads. The setting is a rural town that features a strange high school friendship between Jennifer (Fox), the desirable star cheerleader, and Needy (Seyfried) as her nerdy best friend. The trouble starts as the two venture out to a local bar to check out a traveling band. Jennifer has a crush on the band's lead singer and ends up leaving to hang out with the group despite Needy's protests. When Jennifer stumbles back to Needy's house late in the night, her behavior is freakish, aggressive, demonic, and she is not herself in any regard.
The set up for this movie is quite slow and so poorly scripted I actually considered turning the movie off. Diablo Cody (writer of Juno) in my opinion is one of the most overrated writers in Hollywood today. She is a one dimensional writer. She can create good overall stories, but when it comes to the contents within the beginning and the end she struggles. She has a great premise for Jennifer's Body, which I will give her credit for right now (good job Diablo).
But I must say the composition of dialogue in Jennifer's Body has to be some of the worst I have ever heard in film in my lifetime. The dialogue was so pathetic I literally could not stop myself from rolling my eyes in disgust accompanied by a chuckle of unbelieving laughter. It's almost like Diablo tried so hard to be cool and trendy she fabricated dialogue she could picture moronic high school kids saying and then forced the actors to spit this garbage. Example: You need a "mani" bad. You should find a Chinese chick to buff your situation (whaaaaat?!?).
I was so bothered by this annoyingly dreadful dialogue and how unmoving the story was through the first 40 minutes I asked myself, "Should I really keep watching this?" Well, I never quit watching a movie I have never seen, and Jennifer's Body is a perfect example why.
The second half of the film starts to pick up as the murders become more frequent, the details to Jennifer's "condition" are unveiled, and the tension is ratcheted to a breaking point. Megan Fox actually shows she has some decent acting chops at times in this movie too. One scene in particular had me fidgeting with discomfort as Fox begs with her screams of terror for mercy on her life. I was completely shocked that she was able to move me with that scene, and with her overall performance in this movie.
You may be shocked like I was when the credits roll and you find that you enjoyed or were at least disturbed by Jennifer's Body. The first half is pretty bad, but the conclusion more than makes up for it. Sure Diablo Cody writes dialogue like a neanderthal. But she has a real knack for storytelling, and once the film gets its feet moving it is actually a compelling tale. I absolutely despise bad dialogue, and I'm recommending you see this movie still. Don't write this movie off before you give it a chance, even if that means lasting well into the film's second act.
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