“Jennifer’s Body” is shapeless, average, and is guaranteed to turn off audiences.
The film is directed by Karyn Kusama (“Aeon Flux, 2005), and stars Megan Fox (“Transformers,” 2007) in the lead role, Amanda Seyfried (“Mamma Mia!” 2008) and Adam Brody (“The O.C.”).
The film starts off with Anita Lesnicki (Seyfried), talking about her former best friend Jennifer Check (Fox) and the fateful night when Jennifer was possessed by Satan and murdered three young men.
One night Jennifer takes Anita to a dive bar to attend a concert for indie band Low Shoulder, but during the middle of the concert the venue mysteriously burns down, killing all of the concert- goers except for Jennifer and Anita.
After the two girls escape, the band’s lead singer Nikolai Wolf (Brody), goes to “comfort” the girls and asked them to come into the band’s van. Jennifer accepts and the band takes her away.
Little does Jennifer know the band plans on using her as a virgin sacrifice to Satan so that they can achieve fame and wealth.
However, they do not know that Jennifer is not a virgin. While their wish does get granted, now Jennifer, who is supposed to be dead, resurrects and must live with Satan inside her.
To stay alive Jennifer consumes the bodies of others. As time goes on and Jennifer starts killing off male students at her school, Anita begins to figure out that the cause of all of these deaths is Jennifer.
Anita now must figure out how to stop the bloodthirsty Jennifer before she reaches her boyfriend Chip, but Jennifer manages to get to Chip and begins to eat him.
However, Anita manages to find them before Jennifer is able to complete the job.
Anita and Jennifer begin to struggle with each other until Chip stabs her with a pool net, but Jennifer escapes with only a small wound.
While some parts of the movie are overtly sexual due to the way that Jennifer lures the young men to their deaths, most of the movie though is quite good.
Even though Fox is cast as the leading role and her performance is of course sexy, that’s about all it is and she doesn’t seem to be a particularly versatile actress. The standout performer is Seyfried.
For director Kusama this is a definite improvement over “Aeon Flux.” However, screenwriter Diablo Cody will probably not see the same success with this film as she did with 2007’s “Juno.”
Even though a lot of the movie is filled with dynamic scenes with witty dialogue, it almost seems like Cody forgot that she was writing a horror film, not a comedy.
In comparison to “Juno” where a lot of those comedic lines worked very well and added to the movie’s charm , it did not translate the same in this movie. Most of the lines that are supposed to be funny really fall flat.
The special effects are nothing great and are used sparingly, only when the devil comes out in Jennifer, and in one scene when Jennifer begins to float.
Overall “Jennifer’s Body” is very average. Nothing stands out. It’s just another boring predictable “horror” movie.
My rating: 2 stars out of 5.
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