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Created Sep 28, 2011 07:15AM PST • Edited Sep 28, 2011 07:15AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   OK 2.5

   Half tortured romance, half wild circus tale, Water for Elephants half succeeds as a movie. A pair of unmemorable leads and a bumpy story drag it down. Some accomplished acting, a charismatic elephant named Rosie and the debauched magic of the circus make it worth watching.

4. Acting

   OK 2.5

   Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon are OK as star-crossed lovers. Neither is especially memorable or affecting. Witherspoon perhaps needs roles lit from within, like her June Carter in Walk the Line. Pattinson? Perhaps he needs to be undead.

   Christoph Waltz easily conveys the mercurial moods of a cruel circus honcho, a role reminiscent of his Nazi Colonel from Inglorious Basterds, even if this real ringmaster doesn’t create the same level of oily dread.

   Hal Holbrook charms in the opening setup as a circus vet grown old.

   The rest of the human cast fades into the background. How’s that happen with the freak show that is a circus?

   Finally, let’s hear it for Tai the elephant, who is wonderful as the circus’s savior, Rosie.

5. Male Stars Good 3.0

   Pattinson was OK, Waltz very good.

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

7. Female Costars Barely OK 2.0

8. Male Costars Barely OK 2.0

10. Film

    Good 3.0

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.8

    The movie takes grim satisfaction showing the mistreatment of 1930’s circus animals. The beating of an elephant with a “bull hook” is especially tough, though fortunately it mostly occurs off camera.

17. Sex Titillating 1.6

18. Violence Fierce 1.8

19. Rudeness Salty 2.0

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

    Were circus’s really this debauched during the Depression? Seems plausible.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.5

23. Biological Glib 1.4

24. Physical Natural 1.0