Hoping to capitalize on the Twilight Saga franchise, Beautiful Creatures comes to us complete with a teenage heroine and witches -- called “casters” here -- taking the place of vampires. Directed by Richard La Gravanese, who adapted the screenplay from the “Caster Chronicles” by Kami Garcia and Magaret Stohl, this fantasy romance co-stars Alice Englert and Alden Ehrenreich as star-crossed teen lovers. Happily, both young actors appear sincere and committed to their roles. The film also features a strong supporting cast including Emma Thompson, Jeremy Irons, Emmy Rossum, Viola Davis, Margo Martindale and Eileen Atkins -- all of whom have delivered much better performances in other motion pictures or on TV.

In the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t read the source material, which might have helped my understanding of what was going on in this confusing movie. However, I remain undaunted -- so here’s a film poem expressing my reactions to what I saw.    

“Beautiful Creatures” –

a title unfair.

Beautiful creatures

are really not there.

Witches or “casters”

fill up the screen,

for one of their kind

might choose to be mean.

But should she choose Good

instead of the Bad.

Does this mean she’ll lose

the love of a lad?

He’s faithful and true.

His love seems quite pure.

So we cheer for him

and hope it endures.

The rest of the film

wastes talents galore --

Thompson and Irons

and Rossum and more.

Settings and costumes,

plus weird ghostly stuff

can’t save this movie.

The plot’s just too rough.

NOTE:  It’s no fun for me to be negative about the supporting cast members mentioned above. I’ve absolutely loved their previous work. For example, Thompson usually wows me. How could anyone be a better Nanny McPhee? Irons is outstanding in TV’s “The Borgias” as was Martindale in “Justified.”  Eileen Atkins won me over completely in Cold Comfort Farm. Viola Davis definitely deserved her Oscar nomination for The Help.  And I’m spellbound by Rossum every time I watch The Phantom of the Opera.  No wonder I had such high expectations for Beautiful Creatures.       

 (Released by Warner Bros. and rated “PG-13” for violence, scary images and some sexual material.)

For more information about Beautiful Creatures, go to the Internet Movie Data Base or Rotten Tomatoes website.