"But I love the bones of you. That, I will never escape"

Petie Jacksons, li'l Petersberg.
Guy has made lots of films, suddenly jumping into the limelight, of course, with the LOTR flicks, he adapted the books as much as an adaptation could be, that and Watchmen. He then brought out King Kong, at which point all hope was lost of some classic Jackson appearing, the bloated 3 hours paced slower than snails, not since The Frighteners has Jackson been on top form. So, The Lovely Bones, another book adaptation, does it get back to the harsher, quality films, given it's difficult subject matter?

The tale of Susie Salmon, 14 years old living in the 70's, who is, in the book raped and murdered, only murdered in the film. Her family, devastated, falls apart trying to either get over it, or find the killer as she lives in the 'Inbetween' where she can have anything she loves, but wants to help the family.

Now, the first 30 minutes, the characterisation of Susie and the Salmons is fantastic, Saorise Ronan is impeccable once more, Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz aren't as bad as usual, Susan Sarandon is unnecessary, but moreso later, and Stanley Tucci as the odd neighbour is brilliant.
We are given people to care about and, although early one Susie tells us her fate, we still watch, hoping it doesn't happen.

As Tucci gets Susie into his shack, the sense of forthcoming violence is painful, well handled and freaky. We never see anything, but what is implied isn't nice.

However, after that, as the fantasy sequences of the inbetween appear, the awful CGi from Weta's slowly degrading output, the ridiculous addition of another murder victim, random moments where Susie enters her house, only her house in the inbetween, it all feels too far fetched, we no longer care, it's just bulk. The family's plight is well done for the most part, the addition of detective Christopher Moltisanti, or Michael Imperioli, trying to help the investigation, there's a sense of detection leading to what we know that never gets there, as Weisz can't take it anymore and scarpers, Wahlberg tries to work with his children in finding who did it and Sarandon stops by to a Mrs. Doubtfire housework montage, comedy, really?

The problem is, we know where they need to go, but they never get there, and as sad as the events are, we can't care when we're watching the girl having fun after death as well. In addition, the jumping forward of years so suddenly takes us out of it completely, whilst it couldn't be done in a series of weeks, some subtitles to inform us would have been nice, not poorly executed dialogue informing us.

It's a shame that a solid cast has suffered such a terrible fate in a film where the elongated 2 hour runtime never gets anything more than a ho-hum response, there's not enough tension, there's no real sadness, it's just a dull and poorly made look at the afterlfe and life, or something, and it fails.
4/10