Beautiful Disaster

I fully expected to hate this - but, well, I didn't. "Abby" (Virginia Gardner) is fed up picking up the pieces for her gambler father so heads to college in California. First night there, she and her pal "America" (Libe Barer) head off to a student equivalent of "Fight Club" where she meets the bare knuckle champion "Travis" (Dylan Sprouse). Replete with some of his latest victim's blood on her top, she feigns a loathing for the man but... Shortly afterwards, their dorm water supply runs dry and she has to move in with her friend. Guess what? Yep, one of her new roomies is none other than the mischievous pugilist. There now follows a rather contrived - and frankly ridiculous - bet that sees her end up sharing his bed for a month, Will they, won't they? That doesn't matter - this film isn't about jeopardy. It's about pretty people having a bit of a laugh and hoping some of that rubs off on us. I found there to a bit of chemistry between the two, "Travis" is actually quite charismatic and the humour is marginally more sophisticated than we would find in, say, the interminable "After..." series of teen melodramas. It's trying to do grown up, and it makes a half-decent fist of it. The last twenty minutes are particularly daft though - and did rather ruin the thing. It certainly does not need a cinema viewing (even though there were certainly 50+ people at the screening I attended) - but even if it is too long, it's still an OK watch.

This movie was a DISASTER, for sure not a beautiful one. The girl who played Abby is the worst actor I have ever seen. I could have walked up day of shooting and done a better job than her. It's honestly hard for me to think they watched this back and then signed off on it. If my ticket wasn't $20, I would have left the theater. As someone who has read this whole series multiple times, the day they were released, the movie was an utter disappointment. They turned it into a rom-com and then tried way too hard to be funny so then it wasn't actually funny. There was no depth or even conversation that would warrant love leading up to the "I love You's". I know they can't put everything from the book in the movie but my goodness. They took everything that made the book good out and replaced it with terrible acting, no plot, and lame comedy. 1000000/10 DO NOT RECOMMEND.

Laughably bad, but at least I laughed.

This movie was nothing like the book, except for the character's names. The acting was atrocious and there was barely any chemistry...I came for the steam, but there is no water in my iron, so everything came out forced. I did not believe him as a fighter, so every scene he fought in made me laugh...his one liners made him seem more Spiderman than a brawler. Her gambling scene seemed more juvenile than something that would happen in real life. There was some funny moments but at one point I was wondering if I was laughing because it was funny or because it was sad.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie, I expected not to like it at all. It's actually pretty funny and I got some good laughs out of it. It is not trying hard to be a serious romantic story and instead it embraced and poked fun at the predictability of the cliches and I enjoyed that. I was worried about how they would portray the characters/their relationship since in the book it is pretty problematic/borderline abusive but they definitely softened it up and made it entertaining. Clearly not meant to be taken seriously! Just an enjoyable movie with some spicy scenes and questionable (but good!) acting.

The movie in itself is cute. If I wouldn't of read the book, I would've thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was hoping to see the slow burn of Travis & Abby and see how they really fell in love. The book gives so much detail and I was sad that we only saw what I would call the CliffsNotes version.

Unfortunately, this movie was really rushed and if you didn't read the book before, you may not understand the whole thing. I understand sometimes the books don't always translate well to movies. However, this movie had an incredible amount of potential and I feel that the writers didn't actually read the book 1st.