Movie Info
Movie Name: Jennifer’s Body
Studio: Fox Atomic
Genre(s): Horror/Comedy
Release Date(s): September 10, 2009 (Toronto International Film Festival)/September 18, 2009 (US)
MPAA Rating: R
Naked swimming after eating someone is the best!
Mousy Anita “Needy” Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) might not seem the type to be best friends with a popular attractive cheerleader like Jennifer Check (Megan Fox), but they been best friends since sandbox days. Jennifer and Needy sneak out for a night at Devil’s s only club to see a small band called Low Shoulder. When a fire breaks out Jennifer leaves with the band and comes back…different. Jennifer needs boys more than ever, but it is not just out of lust. Now Jennifer’s got a taste for flesh and no one except Needy seems to see the change. Jennifer needs to be stopped and Needy is the only one who can do it!
So I just open my mouth and you put the vomit in later with a computer…right?
Directed by Karyn Kusama, Jennifer’s Body is Diablo Cody’s follow-up to her Oscar winning script for Juno. The R-Rated film underperformed at the box office and was critically panned. The movie has been released as a theatrical version and the original director’s cut.
Jennifer’s Body was a big disappointment. The movie has potential and it has its moments. The movie should be almost Heathers with teeth…literally, but instead you get a muddled message with points in the movie that are almost surreal. The movie seems confused as to what it is and what the point is. What could have been a movie about feminine empowerment just feels like eye candy for boys.
Why don’t we just make out and get it over with…
The odd thing about the movie is that I don’t mind Megan Fox in it so much. I’ve hated her in movies like Transformers, but here she is eye candy but that is what she is meant to be. I rather wish that the movie was a stereotype flip. It would have been good if Needy became the sexualized character with Megan Fox taking second fiddle…both characters become somewhat unsympathetic by the end especially since Jennifer is never a likable character.
Both Fox and Seyfried are backed up by a nice cast. Adam Brody plays the star of Low Shoulder and Chris Pratt has a small role as Jennifer’s sometime officer boyfriend. Diablo Cody cameos in a the bar scene and J.K. Simmons plays a teacher. The movie has Kyle Gallner as Jennifer’s goth victim, and Johnny Simmons plays Needy’s doomed boyfriend Chip with Cynthia Nixon as his mother. Needy’s mother is played by an underused Amy Sedaris.
What can I say…I like to eat!
The movie has some good settings. It was shot in British Columbia but the “fall to nowhere” is Devil’s Kettle Falls located in Minnesota. It is good that the location is scenic because much of the special effects are pretty weak. The “demon” Jennifer has a pretty bad CGI look and scenes just don’t have much power.
Jennifer’s Body just doesn’t work. The movie isn’t the worst thing you will see and it does have its moments. Diablo Cody does infuse the script with some good zingers and honestly it doesn’t feel as forced as some of Juno. The problem is the plot, and its development. The disappointment is that it could have been good.
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