I
didn’t dig Peter Jackson’s latest film The
Lovely Bones. But this isn’t to
suggest I mightn’t dig it in the future. For instance, dig it a big
fat hole in the middle of the earth, then pile each DVD of the film
into that hole using a large Caterpillar truck plus industrial
snowplough. Then I might dig the film. Dig it while watching the clip
I’ve posted from The Warriors.
Now that’s a film I can dig. Yes indeed.
I
guess I ought make a passing attempt at explaining what it is about
The Lovely Bones
I didn’t dig. Though that seems like pointing out to someone that
the grass is green, or that deontological conceptions of ethics are
laughable. Let’s have a go nonetheless. The
Lovely Bones is about a gut bustingly
earnest 14 year old that succumbs to the sweet whispers of her middle
aged male neighbour to join him in a big hole in the middle of a corn
field, gets moidered nice and proper, then spends the following 36
months in a computer generated purgatory populated solely by other
victims of said neighbour, torturing her family from beyond the
grave.
It’s
set in the seventies for no reason I can discern, except that it
gives Peter Jackson the chance to mis-cast Mark Wahlberg as the gut
bustingly earnest 14 year old’s daddio, then shame him with long
greasy hair across his forehead. Oh, and did I mention, it doesn’t
make a lick spittle bit of sense. Not one. Not even a hint of a
shadow of a whisper of a rumour of an idea of a premonition of a lick
of sense. Nothing. For instance, for some reason there’s a
black dude from England with a weird obsession with
Othello, who insists on calling himself the moor, Sweet Jesus no.
Plus a goth girl that wouldn’tyouknowit sees dead people.
Worst
of all the film isn’t about anything. It features a collection of
mis-cast actors placed in stereotypical roles, then doesn’t do
anything with them for 120 minutes, except perhaps hint at the
spiritual presence of those who’ve passed on. It’s a trite
sentiment, packaged with a $65m budget and a theme’s park worth of
special effects, and produced by Stephen Spielberg. It’s so
bad, I kinda think that in future, directors ought be made to view
The Lovely Bones
before making their own films, but in addition such screenings should
be preceded and followed with the words: Never Forget. In short, I
cannot dig it.
