Jane Eyre****

Went on a bit of a movie bender this month - 4 movies in two weekends! I've already reviewed Fast Five (***) and Thor (***1/2). The second two, just last weekend, were "Bridesmaids" and "Jane Eyre." The former I went to see because a friend suggested it; the latter I went to see because of the X-Men: FIrst Class trailer, and because my friend K. is a bad influence. No, for real -- I mentioned that I was excited about X-Men, and she was all "MICHAEL FASSBENDER!" So I had to look him up and see what the fuss was about. And I found this:





At the beginning of the video, I was like, "Meh, he's OK." But then he started singing the Magnum PI theme song, and he got upgraded to "kind of cute" And then he corrected the pitch of the sound effect he was making at the end of the video, and it was all over. I might have fallen into a rabbit hole of YouTube related videos. Like this one:





Better hair - bad facial hair + The Greatest American Hero = ADORKABLE!


*sigh* I blame K. 


Anyway, once he'd been upgraded to adorkable, which I obviously have a weakness for, I went on Netflix to see what I could see, and that's how I found out about this Jane Eyre. I mentioned it to my roommate, and she told me that it was brand new, just recently in theaters. It was still playing at one of the neighborhood theaters in town, and the matinee was cheap (for a movie ticket in San Francisco), so I decided to check it out. It's not bad, but not great in my opinion. Entertaining. And I think my problems with it may have more to do with the story itself than with the movie. I haven't read the book, so maybe this is more compellingly present there, but I don't really understand why Jane loves Rochester. He's a pretty serious asshole -- I mean, even if you leave out the coldness towards poor Adele, the cruel comments about Fairfax, and the general crustiness, there's the part where HE ALMOST TRICKS HER INTO A SHAM MARRIAGE. And this is the love of her life?


In terms of the film, I wasn't overly impressed with Mia Wasikowska in the proposal scene, but the rest was well done, I thought. And I did like Jane, especially the part where she's like, "Wait, I'm sorry -- you're married?! Peace out."


To be honest, my biggest quibble is that I'm pretty sure Rochester is supposed to be blind, burnt and missing a hand at the end, as opposed to just blind and sporting really bad facial hair. I mean, I'd love it if Jane didn't get stuck with a one-handed, blind, burnt asshole, but that *is* the way it's written...


I'm giving it a gentleman's 4 stars - It's better than decent, but I'll really only remember it because Fassbender's hot when he broods.


5 *s = "WOW!"
4 *s = "Good"
3 *s = "Stupid fun, decent, or at least not bad enough to get 2 *s"
2 *s = "Bad, but not awful, or enjoyable despite its awfulness"
1 * = "The best part was the end, because then it was over."
no *s = "*Deep, pain-filled sigh*...I will never get that [insert running time here] of my life back."