I went into The Lovely Bones with high expectations, very high expectations. I hadn’t read the book, but I was quite interested by the plot. I was also very excited to see Stanley Tucci in the role of the twisted serial killer, but most of all I was excited to see another masterpiece by the fantastic director Peter Jackson. His name assured me that I would love this movie. He is the man behind The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, he is at a point in his career where he can make anything he chooses. There is no possible way this movie can’t be great. Well, I was wrong. It is possible, very possible unfortunately.

The Lovely Bones was huge disappointment. I did not enjoy this movie nearly as much as I hoped I would. I was disappointed pretty much by every aspect this film had to offer except one, Stanley Tucci’s performance. He did a fantastic job, he fully embodied the life of this menacing and lonely serial killer. It was legitimately disturbing at times to watch. He was nothing short of perfect. He chewed up every moment he was on screen, which wasn’t nearly enough. Other than Tucci’s performance and the scenes he his character were involved in, I can’t name a single thing I enjoyed about the movie.

The acting in this film was pretty awful and that’s putting it lightly. It’s not even that everyone else was just being overshadowed by an amazing performance they were truly doing bad. It just didn’t make sense to me. It really seemed as though every scene with Stanley Tucci was directed by the great director Peter Jackson and the rest was directed by some amateur they picked off the street. It really saddens me to say that too, it doesn’t make a bit of sense to me that this movie was created by the same mind behind The Lord of the Rings.

The effects felt extremely corny and flashy, he was able to do a much better job with the CGI in King Kong and that was made four years earlier. The effects truly felt like they were from the 90s and I usually don’t care about effects… at all in fact, but this seemed like a movie that was attempting to pride itself on its effects. I don’t doubt for a second that Peter Jackson will redeem himself soon, but unfortunately at this point in time, this is his most recent movie and I did not enjoy it.

Grade: C