Film Review: Twelve

Starring a host of talent, including Chace Crawford, Emma Roberts, Rory Culkin, 50 Cent, and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland, Twelve is a film that probably passed a lot of people by without them even knowing, mainly because it was never released in the UK. On Rotten Tomatoes, it managed a whole 4%, and apparently made just $0.2m at the box office.
To be honest, these bad reviews are the reason that it has taken me so long to finally pluck up the courage to watch this film on LoveFilm, so what made me change my mind? The fact that I'd read the book.
The book itself has been - quite rightly - accused, in the past, of being heavily pretentious. It reads as if it was written by someone trying to make life a little bit more interesting, but instead making his or her self come across as knowing absolutely nothing about what they are really trying to put across.
So, needless to say, I was curious to see how it translated to film and was really only encouraged by the fact that it had Joel Schumacher at its directing helm. So, what did I think?
Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Okay, so it wasn't brilliant, but c'mon, it's a story about rich
kids doing drugs to make their boring lives more interesting - even rich bitch Sara admits that she acts the way she does because she wants to be famous, and that is how superficial their world is, therefore, this film was never going to be Shakespeare.
Personally, my biggest problem was the overall narration by Kiefer Sutherland, who is of course a very fine actor. I don't know if it's because he has a too-recognisable voice, that I kept equating to his roles in both 24 and Phone Booth, or if it was more the fact that I spent a lot of time questioning who the narrator was. Narrator's are typically there observing, that is their role, but who is doing the observing? He talks about characters as if he knows them well, getting inside their heads, but does he really?
I also couldn't help wondering why the narration was there at all, and the best I can come up with is because there were just so many characters, that it got confusing.
Overall, the acting wasn;t too bad and I found myself unexpectedly impressed by both Emma Roberts and Chace Crawford. I also noticed that Chace Crawford has weirdly beautiful eyes. Now, I don't generally notice such things in actors, but for his character, I couldn't help wondering if this helped White Mike appear more innocent, perhaps even naive to everything that was swelling up around him? I'm not entirely familiar with any of his other work, but Crawford definitely played the little boy lost role well.
Would I watch it again? No, just as I probably wouldn't read the book again either. But, do I regret watching it? No, and I also don't feel like it was an hour and a half of my life wasted. It was a fine watch that I do think has received a bad rap, that it perhaps doesn't entirely deserve.
Plus, I have to admit that it had a much better score than I was expecting from a film like this. But then, what did I expect when Schumacher had hired Harry Gregson-Williams to do it?!
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