( EW.com ) -- `` Beautiful Creatures '' is arriving in a marketplace full of `` Twilight '' junkies still eager for their supernatural teen-romantic fix , and the film 's concept could n't be clearer : It 's `` Twilight '' with the sexes reversed . This time it 's the boy who 's the mortal : moody , bookish Ethan , the outsider in his sleepy small town of Gatlin , S.C. , though Alden Ehrenreich plays him more like a sensitive jock on `` Glee . '' Lena ( Alice Englert ) , the new girl at school , comes from a family of witches ( or , as they 're known here , Casters ) , and on the day she turns 16 she 'll be `` claimed , '' either by the light side or ( more likely , due to a family curse ) the dark side . Adapted from the popular YA novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl , `` Beautiful Creatures '' is lushly pictorial and not-too-badly acted . The best thing in the movie is Englert , who has a fresh , unretouched , Jane Austen-gone-goth allure . ( She is also Jane Campion 's daughter . ) Jeremy Irons , as Lena 's smoking-jacketed rotter-aristocrat uncle , and Emma Thompson , as her floridly angry mother , are like blithe spirits out of a Dark Shadows sequel you want to see . But `` Beautiful Creatures , '' more than the `` Twilight '' films , lacks danger and momentum . The audience , like Ethan , spends way too much time waiting around for Lena to learn whether she 's a good girl or a bad girl . Grade : B- . See the original story at EW.com . CLICK HERE to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly . © 2011 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved .
`` Twilight '' is like `` Beautiful Creatures '' with the sexes reversed . The film is based on a young adult novel by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia . Entertainment Weekly says best thing about the film is the lead actress .