PG-13, 1 hr. 46 min. Directed By:
Julie Anne Robinson. Written By:
Janet Evanovich. Release Date:
Jan 27, 2012.
I’ve been reading Janet Evanovich’s
Stephanie Plum novels for the better part of fifteen years now. Evanovich isn’t exactly what you might call a
classy dame. I read her books not for
vivid prose or wonderful stories, but because she makes me laugh out loud. Literally.
I’m not talking OMFG LOL, I’m talking about laughter that comes until I
tear up a bit and sometimes my stomach hurts after reading one of her novels. I can’t even talk about the drag queen with
the uzi chapter of To The Nines it’s
that kind of funny. Just. Can’t.
Do. It. There are some folks who say Evanovich stole
her ideas from Sue Grafton’s Alphabet Mystery series, but at the end of the
day, Grafton doesn’t make me laugh, and Evanovich never makes me think. The similarities in their series’ are
circumstancial at best. Evanovich’s
characters have proven to be quirky, offensively endearing, and easy to
identify with (up to a point).
Until now. One For
Money may have been written by the same woman who writes the novels, but
the characters have few, if any, of the traits that keep me buying the pulp
fiction this movie was based on. The
funniest parts of the book are in the movie, although some have been edited to
avoid public… hysteria and possible censure, but they aren’t as funny. The sarcastic tone and occasional bits of
irony mixed with physical humor of the books did not manage to come to life on
celluloid. My favorite characters in the
series, Lula and Grandma Mazur, both make the film, but both are relegated to
small parts and neither are representative of the hijinks (and much needed
uplift) that the characters have brought to the novel.
In this, there wasn’t a single cast
member that I liked. Katherine Heigl,
who I think was cast mostly to bring in that late-teen and early-20s date
crowd, fell completely flat as Stephanie Plum, who is equal parts insecurity
and bravado. Heigl made the effort, but
couldn’t pull off the goofiness that fans of the Plum novels will be looking
for. Hers wasn’t the only character that
felt off to me, and I didn’t go in with really high expectations because, well,
at the end of the day, it was an Evanovich work.
I did think this was a fairly decent
adaptation of the book. With the
exception of the scenes that were omitted in order to keep this from an R
rating, and the way that the ending was moderately re-written, it was almost
exactly how the book goes. That wasn’t a
huge deal for me, but it was different enough that there were several times
when I was surprised by something that happened.
Basically, this wasn’t the worst way
to kill two hours. I probably should
have chosen Haywire, instead, when I
was sitting in front of the automated ticket boot, or well, probably just about
anything else, but it could have been worse.
