Peter Jackson's next project is a film adaptation of the novel Lovely Bones, a murder mystery about "a young girl who watches over her family -- and killer -- from heaven", that looks like a real snoozer. Jackson's run of successful ventures looks to end here, even though Rachel Weisz came on board, and the pic has now been joined by Susan Sarandon. This is so far not a particularly strong or young cast, which it desperately needs with such a slow and unappealing theme.

I said this before when I heard about Jackson shopping his deal around - he got the book rights, then packaged himself in as director - this is exactly the kind of story that thrives in books, but dies a slow, painful death on the silver screen. Jackson's forte of overloading the screen with visual effects and drowning your other sensations with broad musical scores and intolerably long cuts isn't likely to magically up and disappear.

Say what you will of the book, this was a very poor choice on Jackson's part.

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