Published: October 08, 2009 08:18 pm      

MOVIE REVIEW: 'Jennifer’s Body' needs work

PALESTINE — (Before a reviewing a movie with such a titillating ad campaign and suggestive title, it is important to note that the good news for parents of teenage boys is also the bad news for teenage boys, namely, that Megan Fox does not appear nude in the movie. Having said that, please be advised that Megan Fox is a beautiful woman and her assets, while not graphically exposed, are on display throughout the movie.)

“Jennifer’s Body” is not particularly original. The plotline, if you can call it that, involves a high school girl named Jennifer (Megan Fox, “Transformers”) becoming a murderous demon. This is not a particularly significant departure in character, as Jennifer is a mean-spirited, self-loving user before becoming the supernatural killer; the big difference is that as a demon, she has a ravenous appetite for human souls, which she gorily rips out of people, while as the “pre-possessed” self-centered Lolita at the beginning of the film she dehumanizes and objectifies everyone she meets. The narrator (Amanda Seyfried, best know for her role in 2008’s “Mamma Mia!”) is Jennifer’s best friend, appropriately nicknamed Needy. Horrified by Jennifer’s new homicidal tendencies, Needy is reluctant to directly oppose her long-time friend until Jennifer’s demonic activities become personal. Screenwriter Diablo Cody, whose first effort, “Juno” was quirky enough to win the Oscar for best screenplay in 2007, does not seem to be in her element here. At times, the crass dialogue seems campy, but the self-analyzing narration is deadly serious. The characters are one dimensional. What’s more, the story bounces from parody to allegory and back again, at times taking itself far too seriously.

Part of the problem with “Jennifer’s Body” may have to do with the uneven direction of Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux and Girlfight.) At other times, this is standard teenaged horror flick, at other times, it is campy comedy, and at other times, it strives to be high art. The camera caresses Ms. Fox’s curves, fixates on gore, insinuates itself into intimate conversations, and pokes fun at men. The sets take on that same chameleon-like quality, varying from pristine high school classrooms, to seedy bars, to middle class suburban homes, to abandoned indoor swimming pools with overgrown vegetation sprouting like a bad Batman remake. The result is a mood-shifting movie that the audience is not allowed to enjoy. A few creepy moments slip in, but none are truly scary; a few humorous exchanges occur, but in such deadpan delivery that they are too easily overlooked; and drama, romance, and sensuality are scattered about so haphazardly as to appear to be afterthoughts. The movie never quite meshes into a cohesive whole, but instead remains a jumbled, unidentifiable mess.

The promise of seeing the nubile body of Megan Fox is clearly the draw to this movie, and the often scantily clad Ms. Fox does not disappoint. She and Amanda Seyfried both do competent if unspectacular jobs as the lead characters, although they never seem to know where the writer and director are trying to take this film (if indeed Ms. Kusama or Ms. Cody themselves know). Johnny Simmons, as Amanda Seyfried’s boyfriend, resembles Michael Cera, the boyfriend of the title character in Ms. Cody’s “Juno” both physically and as a character; it seems that Ms. Cody and Ms. Kusama are drawn to dominant female characters, and male characters, are ironically for a movie entitled “Jennifer’s Body,” the real objects. Still, this movie needs more than workmanlike acting to lift it from mediocrity.

This could have been a very good horror movie. It could have been first-rate satire. It could even have been dramatically interesting. Instead, it is none of these, and I am hard pressed to say what it is.