Boy meets girl.  Boy falls for girl.  Girl falls for boy.  There’s a deep, dark secret that makes their love dangerous.  Much moping and emo-ness ensues for four overlong books.  Sound familiar?  Well, this time it’s different.  Because in the Caster Chronicles the super-secret is held by the girl, not the guy.  And the emo mopey is done by the guy, not the girl.  I know, right?  It’s like it’s all brand new.  It’s like Twilight, if the dude is the one acting like a chick.

But the movie Beautiful Creatures has something the Caster Chronicles series of books — and “that other series” — don’t have; a sly bit of fun and snarky self-aware leads.  Oh, and casting Oscar winners Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson and Viola Davis as supporting characters doesn’t hurt either.  Beautiful Creatures is simply popcorn fodder that goes down smooth.

Trying to figure out if Beautiful Creatures is something that you’ll want to watch, or something that’ll make you roll your eyes?  Well, it all depends on what you’re looking for.

* An interesting story in an easy-to-absorb format: a’yup.
* Gorgeous costumes and set decoration that makes East Nowhere, South Carolina seem like a place you want to move to right this second: absolutely.
* A fresh new spin on the overplayed “mortal lurves a supernatural” romance: yeppers.
* Main characters that can do more than just whine about their lot in life: YES.  Thank god.
* Accurate South Carolina accents: kinda.  It varies from character to character.
* A plot beyond “oh noes, what’ll happen when she turns 16?”: nope.
* All the characters from the book acting exactly the way they did in the book: nope, and if you expect that then you’ve never seen a film adaptation in your life.  Ever.
* Hard won life lessons: really, this movie doesn’t aim that high y’all.
* A piece of High Art dressed as young adult entertainment: seriously, are you high right now?

Beautiful Creatures isn’t a slavish depiction of the novel, and I for one couldn’t be happier.  The book is an exercise in patience, as you read the story of Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) and Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert), a beautiful new girl in town that’s also the niece of the town’s resident Boo Radley, Macon Ravenwood (Irons).  Seems Lena and her family are “Casters”; witches by another name.  But Lena’s family is different; at 16, she will be claimed for “Light” or “Dark” as was everyone else in her family for hundreds of years.  She’s got no choice in the matter.  As pages turn, it seems as if the only thing Ethan and Lena can do is pout and bemoan their fate.  I started rooting for Lena’s badass Dark cousin Ridley (played expertly in the movie by Emily Rossum) since she seemed to be the only one who was having any fun.  Or who had any kind of personality.

With the film things are different.  Characters are combined.  The town library (who was also Ethan’s dead mother’s BFF) Marian is folded into the part of Ethan’s superstitious housekeeper Amma (Davis).  It works well, and as you’d expect Davis turns Amma into more than the typical “Magical Negro” that gets trotted out in other films.  Amma needs to be tough, as she’s got Thompson’s big bad Dark Caster/Lena’s momma Sarafine to contend with.  Thompson downplays the eeeevil, which makes it more chilling than if she’d gone full-on Maleficent.  Though the climax with Sarafine and Lena could have been a little more razzle-dazzle.  It’s as though the timer went off and they had to wrap the movie up posthaste.

My heart broke a little when I saw that my very favorite character from the novel was nowhere to be found in the film.  Boo, Macon Ravenwood’s wolf/dog, is nowhere to be seen in Beautiful Creatures.  It’s not as if Boo plays a pivotal role, but I would have liked to have seen him just the same.  This coming from someone who is still hoping for a Warg puppy.  Oh, and not all of the Casters are exactly like they were in the book.  So fans of the original story may be furrowing their brows in confusion by the end credits.

Director/Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese has worked on several other fun-but-lightweight films I’ve enjoyed, including P.S. I Love You and Paris, je t’aime.  He seems to have the ability to create enjoyable films that your mind doesn’t hold on to for long.  He also is able to pull you in to the lives of these characters and make you bond with them, and he makes it look easy.  LaGravenese does a wonderful job pumping life and affection into the screenplay, and the two young leads make it seem as though the love each other for more than just the sake of destiny.

So what do we learn from Beautiful Creatures?  We learn that Dark gets you really cool glowy eyes, and Light gets you…not Dark.  We learn that being forced to participate in Civil War re-enactments is probably still way cooler than having to write a term paper in high school history.  And we learn that if you make nice to the librarian she may just show you where the really good shit is kept.  Sit back, relax, and let some of the best award-winning actors strut their stuff in a genre piece.  And oh yeah, watch as two relative newcomers play the closest thing to real teenagers that big-budget movies have gotten to in quite awhile.