Twilight

In case you hadn't heard, there is a new adolescent book to movie hysteria that has recently been unleashed, and that is the Twilight Saga. The books, in a nutshell, are about a 16 year old girl who falls in love with a Vampire, who has been 17 since the early 1900s. So basically, it is a love story for the super-hero generation. When Meghan first read these (four) books, I was a bit skeptical at first. The vampires sounded really hokey and it mostly just seemed geared towards high school freshman girls, and in reality, it is. But, since the movie was coming out, I decided I would read the first book before, and not pull a Harry Potter where I haven't read the books at all.

The book pleasantly surprised me. Stephanie Meyer, the author, draws you into this universe and makes it completely believable. I love the witty sarcastic humor that she adds to the main character, Bella, and it sometimes feels as though you are sharing your own private joke with her. Also, the vampire love story isn't laid on too thick for my early 20s male self, and there was really only one part of the book where I felt.... well, awkward. But mostly, I just wanted to see what happened next, even though the book is mostly about emotions rather than action up until the later parts of it.

So, I can get through this book easily, but I can't force myself to sit down and read a whole Harry Potter, or even The Lord of the Rings. And, for those of you who don't know me personally, I love to read. I am a big fan of the Forgotten Realms/Dragonlance series of books, and I always have a current book that I am reading. But, I can't get through The Lord of the Rings, which is the basis for any fantasy universe ever created. The way Tolkien writes just.... annoys me. It is like reading the internal ramblings of a scatter-brained old lady. Also, I can't get through Harry Potter either. J.K. Rowling doesn't annoy me as much as Tolkien does, but I can't shake the feeling that she is just trying too hard to be Roald Dahl, and not quite reaching it for me. I like Roald Dahl (or I did when I was a kid anyway), but I can't get into Rowling or Tolkien. Maybe I just don't get British people..... that could be it.

Anyway, I liked Twilight. Book or not, when the movie was announced, I told Meghan I was going to bring her. She adamantly refused, because she knew the movie would never be as good as the books, just like Harry Potter, even though, she admits, the Harry potters movies are good movies. I assumed that since Twilight was also being made by Warner Bros., it would at least be an enjoyable movie.

God was I wrong. This movie is HORRIBLE. The best way I can describe it is it's like watching the atrocious meadow/fireplace scenes from Attack of the Clones, for two hours. It is THAT bad. First, the actors are terrible. Every single actor acts as if they have this giant stick up their ass, just like in the new Star Wars movies. The terrible acting is slightly more forgivable in a movie that takes place in space and has lots of action and lightsaber dueling, but this movie is ABOUT emotion. The acting should not just be a side dish. I thought that Robert Pattison would actually be a good choice for the role of Edward, the leading vampire man-meat, due to his role in Harry Potter. But, he comes off like Anakin. "Gee, I know I have some emotion and acting talent in here somewhere, but I just can't find it".

But, I feel like this movie suffers from the same problem that the new Star Wars movies did, where the fault doesn't (totally) lie with the actors, but in the terrible writing and directing. First of all, they didn't actually make a movie based on the book, they basically just made a narration. You can get away with some of this dialogue in the book, since there is so much character development, you know why they are saying the things they do and acting the way they act. But, when you cut out all the character development, and then pull out random lines from the book for the characters to say, you are left wondering what the hell is wrong with these people. It feels like you are watching a movie about a high school for the mentally disabled, where every student also happens to be socially awkward. They needed to write a movie, not a book, cut out some of the stupid scenes, and focus on having less scenes with more character development. The whole thing just feels rushed. It seems like Warner Bros. didn't have faith that this movie would do anything. The movie is two hours flat, which is a telltale sign that the duration was a mandate from above, then the horrible low-budget writer they chose tried everything she could to fit the book into 2 hours. Wrong. The screenplay writer, Melissa Rosenburg, needs to stick to writing TV shows.

This brings me to the next huge mistake of this movie, the directing. This movie looks like it is shot from some n00b straight out of film school who just wants to throw in as many stupid, awkward, F-ING RETARDED camera shots as humanly possible. It is like she just discovered this new plaything called a camera and decided to just go crazy. Weeeeee. Do us all a favor and stop directing anything. The director, Catherine Hardwicke, also directed the movie Thirteen, which is about a (you guessed it) 13 year old girl who is discovering all the wonders of teenage life, including drinking, drug use, and sex. Here, Hardwicke's camera n00bness works because the movie has an indie-movie feel and is also very depressing, so the random hand held camera bits and shots that have the colors washed out feel more natural. This doesn't work in Twilight. You can't direct the same movie about teenage drug use when exploring a more lighthearted story of a girl and her vampire lover. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Also, your shots were so damn awkward that it made the actors feel awkward, which in turn makes your audience feel awkward. And for the love of god, BACK AWAY from the actors a little bit. The close of the the mom is probably the most frightening thing in this movie. Back up, make a real movie. Ugggg.

Also, another indicator that the producers didn't have any faith in this movie on its own, is the inclusion of popular music throughout the movie. The end credits roll with Linkin Park. Really? Did ANYONE take this movie seriously during filming/post-production? What a joke.

So anyway, if you were thinking of checking this movie out, don't. It's terrible. It reminded me a lot of the worst movie ever made, Pathfinder. I turned that movie off after 30 minutes due to the horrible directing and acting. Twilight doesn't hold a candle to the Harry Potter movies, not even close. Those movies are well constructed, directed, and acted. Twilight is none of those, and everyone should stay away from it, and read the books instead. You can read them in a single day if you wanted to and it would be much better spent than going to see this crap.

One other note about this movie. This movie is part of the reason we aren't talking about the new Harry Potter movie right now. HP and the Half-Blood Prince was originally going to be released around this time, but it was pushed back until next July to make room for Twilight. Another justification is that Warner Bros made such a giant, Titanic-sized load of money from The Dark Knight, they moved Harry Potter to next year to pad its fiscal pockets for '09, and placed Twilight in its stead.


Don't pay 10 dollars, or any amount of money for that matter, to see this movie. The End.