Only 10 minutes into (Fox Movies Premium, Saturday at 9pm) and my fears of having to suffer another bloody, tortuous teenage-coming-of-age-romantic-supernatural-fantasy-fumbling are well and truly being realised.
In the sleepy middle-of-nowhere town of Gatlin, South Carolina, high school student Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich, doing his very best young Leonardo DiCaprio impression) dreams of one day escaping his small-town bible-belt community - until, that is, he becomes enamoured with a sullen and mysterious new classmate, Lena Duchannes. Bonding over a mutual love of Vonnegut and Bukowski (hey, that's not a bad start to any meaningful teenage relationship!) they are soon stranded together in a torrential rainstorm and the forbidden-love-by-numbers schmaltz fest is under way.
You see, Lena is a "Caster", as in spell not sugar, with supernatural powers, and is set to become either a good witch or an evil one when she turns 16, in just a few weeks. While most Casters live openly among humans they are forbidden from forming romantic attachments to us mere mortals, but Ethan is a lusty teenager with lusty adolescent urges and he's not about to let some ancient hocus-pocus get in the way of modern hanky-panky - or eternal love, even. In a melodramatic struggle between light and dark, Lena's reclusive uncle, Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons, hamming it up to 11), battles to steer his niece towards the powers of light while Lena's mother, Sarafine (an equally scene-chewing Emma Thompson), tries to draw her to the powerful dark side.
Based on the young adult novel of the same name by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, this is the first in a series of four "Caster Chronicles". It's pretty obvious that its makers are looking to tap into the filthy lucrative Twilight market and fill the gaping void left by the departure of vampiric sweethearts Edward Cullen and Bella Swan.
Maybe I have been put under a spell of adolescent witchcraft because, while it doesn't quite climax with angsty teenage Twilight conviction, Beautiful Creatures becomes much more enjoyable after those first 10 minutes are out of the way.