Twilight (2008)
Twilight is not the 0-star picture so many people claim (or want) it to be. If you like it, I can understand why. That said, those who call it a great film are doing so because of their affection for the source material, which itself isn't particularly robust. This is getting overly complicated. Let’s just get to the review.
Seventeen-year-old Isabella “Bella” Swan (Kristen Stewart) moves to the small town of Forks to live with her father, Charlie (Billy Burke). At her new school, she gets along with everyone… except for the enigmatic Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). The boy seems almost repulsed by her but Bella is drawn to him. As it turns out, he - and his feelings for Bella - aren't what they seem.
There are some undeniable faults in this picture. The performances, for instance. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have proven themselves strong performances but director Catherine Hardwicke stifles any emotions that might've been present. Not helping is the screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, which directly quotes the novel by Stephenie Meyer often. You'll find plenty of clunky, overly wordy exchanges, the kind that comes from an author spinning their wheels, trying to buy time before a big reveal three chapters later by busting out their thesaurus and endlessly re-writing the same dialogue until it becomes a garbled mess.
Twilight is also a bit too ambitious for its budget. The special effects aren't convincing. It made me think back to the Smallville pilot, which would've been a good thing was this a TV series or non-theatrical movie, but someone should’ve looked at the fast-motion effects and recognized how silly they looked.
If you’re reading this segment of the review, you know that Edward is a vampire. Not the scary Nosferatu type, but a hundred-year-old glittering, sullen-faced, creature of the night that falls head-over-heels in love with Bella Swan. People will call this ridiculous but this is where I'll defend Twilight. Yes, the glittering thing is dumb, but it’s a detail. Considering every vampire in this film has a different superpower (which is an elegant way of blending the various myths about vampires), you can just pretend that’s Edward’s. I will also stand up for the relationship between the lovers. Bella and Edward have something about them that genuinely WOULD make them a good couple. When Bella comes to school, she’s basically loved by all. The boys want to date her, the girls want to be her best friend. All, except for one guy. Why? because Edward can read minds. No one in the world is a mystery to him. Holding a conversation, even with his fellow vampires is redundant but he can’t hear Bella’s thoughts. She's the only person in the entire world he could sit down and have a chat with.
There’s a germ of a good idea here. It’s the execution that's at fault. Perhaps the source material too. You might have to squint a bit but you can find scenes in the film that are good. The best example is a moment when the Cullens play baseball. It shows them as real “human beings”. People will call the scene where Edward admits that he likes to watch Bella sleep “creepy”, but that’s because he can't express himself well. As a vampire, he doesn’t sleep. He's been forced to live only with his kind and always drifts further away from normal human behavior. He hasn’t seen someone sleep in ages. He’s not “keeping an eye on her” at all times, he’s fascinated by every aspect of this young woman. Many of the interactions Bella has with her friends are charming and Billy Burke does good work with his role.
Twilight is harmless. It will appeal to those who've enjoyed the book and is sure to ensorcell young teenage girls. Unfortunately, the source material's weaknesses shine through, and neither director Catherine Hardwicke nor writer Melissa Rosenberg do much to improve upon it (trust me on that). This makes it nothing special for the rest of us but hardly a plague upon cinema so many people have declared it to be. I don’t see why it’s gotten such strong reactions either way. Perhaps the sequel, New Moon, will make it clearer. (Theatrical cut on DVD, December 9, 2016)
