Water for Elephants (2011)

Rating: 65%

Alright. Now that Bridesmaids is done, now it's time to move on to this film. 

Plot: Jacob Jankowski is a 23 year old Polish American Cornell veterinarian medicine student who losses his parents during his final exam. So he is left homeless and heads to the road. He hijacks a circus train where he eventually gets a job as the circus' vet by it's Owner, August. Jacob eventually is assigned to train an elephant named Rosie to be the star attraction along with August's wife, Marlena. But as the film continues the two begin to fall in love.

Now the general plot of coarse is not that incredibly original, but it's enjoyable anyway. It gives a dangerous but also really fun idea about the life working at the circus. Now there's not a whole lot of chemistry work between Jacob and Marlena. Would I agree to that? Yes, but I liked it that way. I thought it was nice how we had more on the development on the relationship/other things happening in the circus before it really became a big deal. This movie is probably not for people who are interested in the chemistry, but I thought it worked in order to tell us more about everything else that's not the relationship. 

Actors/Characters:

Robert Pattinson/Jacob: Now for the first...ten-ish minutes of having Pattinson in this film, he was just his normal Edward Cullen self. Not much emotions, having that...look or glare, I'm not sure what's the right way to put it, and I think he had his eye partially closed even...maybe. But somewhere around the time he saw the big top get put up the day after he hopped on the train, and after he puts Silver down, he starts to get much better with his facial expressions. In fact, I think he had more facial expressions and better use of voice and things like that than he did in the Goblet of Fire which is the only movie I've seen him in outside of the Twilight movies. So this is probably the best I've seen him do all around as an actor...which is where Pattinson fans should hope that he improves as an actor once Twilight is over with Breaking Dawn part 2 in November. 

Reese Witherspoon/Marlena: Okay so this is the first time I've ever seen Witherspoon in a live action film. Because I really don't know much about her. I know she was doing the voice of Susan in Monsters vs. Aliens, and I know she was Jill Green in a couple episodes of Friends, but never until now have I seen her in a live-action movie. Now how was she? She did a nice job. Nothing really stood out to me, but maybe that's because I don't know this actress very well and this movie probably is not exactly one of the highlights of her career. I guess we may have to see.

Christopher Waltz/August: Just. Plain. AWESOME!!! Just the guy we remember so well from Inglorious Bastards with just a different character. August was a man you did not want to mess with and wants everything his way, and Waltz shows us this character beautifully. His movement, his voice, his facial expressions, if there was only one thing that would make this movie worth your while, it would be to become easily amused by our dear friend Hans Landa.

Music: I liked the music. If there was a piece I found most interesting, it would be the music during the scene where Jacob tried to kill August in his sleep.

Editing: Editing was fine mostly, but when Marlene attacks August from behind in the end, I thought they made the cut too late. Because the way they made it was that she swings the bar I think it was, and hits him on the side, they stay completely still with the bar still touching his side for a couple of seconds and then they cut to him reacting to the hit and going from there. So I thought the cut between hitting him and his reaction to it was badly timed.    

And that's my review for Water for Elephants. We may not get a lot of chemistry, but to me, that let's us focus on just the process of the relationship or anything else that happens in the film, and plus we get some very nice performances that makes it a nice film anyway.