2nd Opinion: Jennifer's Body (2009)

Diablo Cody and Megan Fox: Two names that when mentioned tend to elicit strong reactions, positive or negative. So of course their new horror-comedy Jennifer’s Body is getting more press one usually finds in a movie released in September. Is it warranted? We’ll see...

Fox tends to get hated on or lusted after, probably because she...well, you’ve seen her. With Transformers 2 and now Body coming out, I don’t remember a day this year when I logged online or opened a magazine that didn’t feature her at a premiere or giving an interview. Still, if you’re going to overexpose someone...might as well be her.

Cody, because she can write better than most of us, has Steven Spielberg as a boss, used to disrobe for money, and owns a (deserved) Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Juno, probably gets lashed out against more vehemently, as opposed to Fox’s volume, because she’s proven she has talent. Besides who were you going to give the Oscar to give to besides her back in ’07? That kids movie about the cooking mouse? Sure, if the voters had the mean average age of 13. Michael Clayton? Okay, maybe. Or that cloyingly retarded movie about with Ryan Gosling getting with a blow up doll? Of course not. Don’t hate because she has an Oscar and your Tarantino/Wes Anderson ripoff is on page364 (with 290 of those pages set in a coffee shop) and barely in the second act or that your student film can’t get screened, despite your mom saying it’s really, really good. Is her script for Jennifer’s Body a worthy follow-up to Juno? No more than Burn after Reading was for the Coen brothers after No Country for Old Men, simply because it’s not trying to be anything but a decent gory time at the movies.

(Over)Hype aside, is Jennifer’s Body a good movie? Good enough, if your dollar helped that moronic Final Destination 4 Gump into first place two weeks in a row last summer or were one of the 46 people to the see limp Halloween sequel, then like me, you’re really not that discerning and J-Bod is much more fun than those two combined. You all wisely skipped Whiteout last week so if you’re going to go back to the movies and the thought of a bloated Matt Damon leaves you freaked, go see Jennifer’s Body and check out Megan Fox’s cleavage.

I meant...acting.

Jennifer Check (Fox- with more dialogue in one hour of screentime than both Transformers movies combined) is a Veronica at Devil’s Kettle’s hayseed High School and Needy (Amanda Seyfried) is her Betty. They’re friends despite all the evidence that they shouldn’t be. You gather that they still hang out with each other simply because they know of no other people who can stand each other for extended periods of time. Needy has a steady boyfriend with the lily-white name of Chip (Johnny Simmons) and Jennifer is banging a local cop-to-be (“I’m not even a backdoor virgin... as I had to sit on a bag of frozen peas all day”)

They go to a local dive...Devil’s Kettle’s only bar because the indie band Low Shoulder is playing, and its lead singer (Adam Brody, gleeing it up in guyliner) is taking a liking to Jennifer...but not for the reasons you might expect.

While Low Shoulder is emoing up an awful song about Trees, the bar goes up in flames (in one of the movie’s best sequences- a “white trash pig roast”) but Jennifer and Needy manage to escape thanks to a sticker toilet.

While in a state of post-survival delirium, Low Shoulder practically kidnaps Jennifer and throws her into their van (vans: never a good idea, as they’re usually the Chi-mo’s chariot of choice).

Needy is worried but limps back home eventually, waiting for Jennifer’s call.

Jennifer arrives at Needy’s house later that night. She’s looks like she’s been assaulted and has blood encrusted all over her body, but other than that she’s ducky. A little hungry though, as she devours an entire Boston Market chicken breast and then pukes up black bile oddly reminiscent of the Exxon Valdez.

Needy cleans up the mess.

The next day Jennifer is back at school with her hair all shiny and her chest like stalagmites. Devil’s Kettle is still mourning the loss of so many deaths at the fire, but Jennifer could give a fuck. Needy knows something is going on with her.

That something being that Jennifer has a demon inside her and has to kill and devour others in order to sustain it/herself. This may pose a problem later as there’s a spring formal coming up, and so few outfits match well with blood and gristle.

This part of the review brought to you by the Jennifer’s Body Soundtrack, featuring such flash in the pan Indie Groups as-

THE REICHS
KALEIDOSCOPE OF GRAVY
ETERNITY LONGER THAN SOUTHLAND TALES
ABORSEAN PENS

(Soundtrack review?

And many more...