A Cilada

Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum's generically titled 'Careful What You Wish For' is a painfully average erotic thriller that's light on eroticism and even lighter on thrills. The movie wallows in the genre's tropes without escalating them beyond the familiar. The lack of originality and effort ultimately sinks the picture, but not before the reveal of an absurd twist ending that feels more ridiculous than shocking. Both Nick Jonas and Isabel Lucas are decent but the adulterous relationship that's at the heart of the film is never very credible, let alone sizzling, due to there's not much chemistry between them.

Careful What You Wish For is a good case study in the failings inherent in the Hollywood star system. The film is essentially star vehicle that is produced well but which fails to deliver anything substantial due to the lackluster performances of its leading actors around whom the film has been structured.

Nick Jonas plays Doug Martin, an adolescent without personality who falls for the gorgeous Lena Harper (Isabel Lucas), a married woman with a dark and devious plan to make big bucks fast. As a leading lady, Lucas does nothing more than showing us her very skinny body as she seduces her way into Jonas' very silly heart.

The film, directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosen, is not essentially a bad product. Rosen's direction is competent, the cinematography is pretty, editing is tight, the script holds up alright, and the production itself is of a good quality. There is a solid story arch that held my interest till the end. And it is a nice star vehicle for Lucas and Jonas. But the supposed stars have a very limited acting ability, even at the hands of a director who has a good grasp of her craft born from a long and stable career in television.

Unfortunately, all the potential of this film is lost through a leading couple who never quite arrive as the stars in the vehicle. Unless you are interested in learning from the mistakes made by Lucas and Jonas, you can safely give it a miss.

Direction: 6||Acting: 2||Cinematography: 7||Concept and delivery: 4|

First, let me tell you that wishing for this movie to be good will be of no avail. There's no reason in hoping for a satisfying thriller like this one seems to claim, because doing so will only lead to a massive letdown.

CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR's biggest flaw is neither its premise nor its narrative. There's a lot to negatively comment about those two areas, but they're still much more tolerable than the movie's horrible casting. None of the actors are able to serve the requirements of their roles, and while their characters hold promise of being interesting, none of the performers could actually pull them excellently, even to a tolerable level. Their dialogues and the overly familiar plot, are partly to blame, but it so difficult to jump to that part when the first thing that can be noticed is the horrible designation of the actors to roles utterly unsuited for them. There's this evil psychopath named Elliot who never really brings as much threat as he is required. Letting Isabel Lucas play a role that doesn't fit her age is perhaps the biggest mistake in the casting. Even with her capacity fully stretched, Lucas is never able to get halfway meeting all the demands of her character. Her character, Lena, is supposed to be a devious and cunning femme fatale, Isabel Lucas is plain boring. Almost the same can be said with Nick Jonas, although it's really hard to say his role's totally garbage, when almost half the time he's confused and waiting for a good line to throw. If it's any consolation, there's a lot of skin shown here, and I'm pretty sure Nick's fans as well as Isabel's will be pleased. Other than that, there's really nothing to expect.

It is really difficult to follow the narrative's flow when all that worries you is whether the characters are still going to be something interesting or not. The plot isn't new either, and it still could have been interesting, if the characters are played the way they're supposed to be. These flaws accrue to an overall feeling that is neither good nor okay, much less satisfying. Albeit cliché, CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR could have been an enjoyable experience. There is so much to mine in its premise, but its terrible casting paralyzes the movie and made itself incapable of digging such potential. The result is an overwhelming sense of dissatisfaction.

Doug Martin is a local boy who gets attracted to Lena, the beautiful young woman who lived next door. Problem is she is married to a much older wealthy man who was shrouded in an aura of danger. Of course, his teenage hormones got the better of Doug when Lena encouraged his interest. But then, where there is an illicit affair, a violent payback will not be far behind.

This story has been told many times before. An young guy is seduced by a sexy married woman. This type of film is usually told from the woman's point of view like the recent Jennifer Lopez film "The Boy Next Door", though the point of view is reversed in this one. It also brought back memories of "A Night in Heaven" and "Private Lessons" shown back in the early 1980s. IMDb lists down at least 40 films with this steamy plot, mostly trashy B-flicks. This just goes to show that films like this that deal with adolescent sexual temptation will always be there to appeal to the baser instincts of viewers.

Isabel Lucas seems too young to play the femme-fatale Lena. She looks great to look at, a true seductress, that is, when she is not talking. When there are lines to deliver though, her limited acting skills show. It seems she has not really improved her craft since her similarly wooden big screen debut in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen".

Dermot Mulroney, an all-around good guy in most of his old films, plays against type as Lena's sinister husband. It was good to see Paul Sorvino as the local policeman. Too bad these two veteran actors were underused in their limited scenes.

This film is clearly a showcase for Nick Jonas to signal his foray into more mature film roles. Director Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum, herself previously associated with teen-oriented films and TV shows like "Aquamarine" and "Gossip Girl", lovingly sets up her camera to capture her star Nick Jonas in his best angles, in various stages of undress for his teenage girl fans (old enough to watch R-rated films) to ogle at. To his credit, Jonas does register well on screen and he did do passably in the acting department.

Fresh from being slimed as emcee of the last Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, Nick Jonas may find it hard to escape his teen idol image at first. Mark Wahlberg has proved that that curse could be overcome. As for Jonas though, that still remains to be seen. 4/10.

All together it's not all that bad of a flick, predictable yes, but still fun to watch to see where its all headed. I thought the talent could have been given a much better script to work with. As most mentioned previously the premise is old and tired,,,,,,some new twists could have been added to make it more interesting! Most probably watched for the eye candy, but again a flick that can be enjoyable if you don't get too serious about it and just kick back and watch.