Starting with a fairytale premise and transforming into a tentative love story, Beastly is at best - a good attempt with bad execution. Beastly starts off with the arrogant hero Kyle Kingsbury who has everything in his small town home - money, family, looks, and the attitude to match it. But as his luck fails him, after a jerkish move too many, Kyle's angered a prideful witch who tries to set him right. Now cursed with a spell to stay a beast forever, Kyle must find true love in two years time or be fated to live his life as a monster. 
 On the outside, Beastly offers readers the same classic elements of Beauty and the Beast. Ugly male that finds a woman to love him, the obsessive rose theme, and the female imprisonment part. However in the same wishy-washy half-hearted attempts, they all seem to fall flat. While living under the curse, Kyle seems to suddenly change to become a whole new person - everything from demeanor, to even his name, and his way of thinking about his past actions are completely reversed! In my eyes, such a 180 in personality change seems quite unrealistic and completely hackneyed. As much as character growth is welcome, Kyle's changes just seem too much to be believable without investigating more of his past and thought processes. However, I don't believe that's nearly quite the worst part. 
 The female lead - Lindy, is just a girl, a nerd that the past Kyle would never even consider. She's kinda meek, been living in a terrible conditions with her incompetent father and forced to live with Kyle from there on out. But Lindy doesn't seem to bring much to the table. Aside from her father, Lindy's past/personality is rather stereotyped, her personality is insipid, and her love story with Kyle doesn't add any chemistry to the equation. 
 From such a strong start, Beastly seems to be another exceptional fairytale retelling, but it never seems to get off the ground. Beastly is at best, a futile attempt at recreating the magic of princes and princesses.