The Lovely Bones

"Engrossing, often enthralling movie (...) The plot has a few pitfalls. (...) But the movie is packed with privileged moments" 

"A deplorable film (...) The makers of this film seem to have given slight thought to the psychology of teenage girls (…) Rating: ★½ (out of 4)" 

"Peter Jackson's infatuation with fancy visual effects mortally wounds 'The Lovely Bones.' (...) Jackson undermines solid work from a good cast with show-offy celestial evocations that severely disrupt the emotional connections with the characters." 

"The film certainly plays well enough as a melodrama-cum-revenge thriller. (...) is not without its tension, humor and compelling details. But it's also a simpler, more button-pushing tale that misses the joy and heartbreak of the original [book]." 

"As a pictorial artifact 'The Lovely Bones' is gorgeous. It pulses and blooms and swells with bright hues and strange vistas. But it does not move" 

"Everything about Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s bestselling book 'The Lovely Bones' is worked out to an excruciating fault (...) And yet [it] is often moving, almost in spite of itself" 

"[One wishes] wish that the entire film were as effective as [its] best moments, but that was not to be."