Twilight - Review

Whenever a novel comes out and makes a huge impact on either teen or preteen audiences, I generally approach them with caution. Twilight made such a huge splash on pop culture, that a film adaptation was inevitable. Like the novel, the movie made an equal if not greater impact on the film industry, bringing in oceans of box office revenue despite receiving extremely mixed reviews.

It was those mixed reviews that made me weary of this movie, and after seeing a few clips I failed to see why exactly nearly every girl was freaking out about how much they loved this movie. Well... I realize that when you have a romantic story with good looking characters, that will generally catch some attention. Nonetheless, I still couldn't put my finger on why this series was the one that everyone obsessed over. So, after months and months of avoiding to watch Twilight, I decided to give in and just see what all the hype was about. After watching it, I've come to this conclusion... TWILIGHT IS ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN!!!!!! Seriously!!! This movie was one of the most painful movie going experiences I've ever been through. Its one of the few movies that has honestly made me angry while watching it!

The plot centers around young Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) who moves to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her father. Her first day at her new high school, she meets Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), and immediately falls in love with him. Edward, however, is hiding a dark secret from Bella, he is a vampire. The two fall in love, despite disapproval from Edward's "family" and Edward's lust for blood.

I'm kind of embarrassed to review this movie. I'm actually quite ashamed to admit that I actually watched the whole damn thing from start to finish. Generally when I watch movies, I can usually find something that I enjoyed and with the odd exception can focus on that enough to get through a below-average flick. Twilight, however, was one of those odd movies that I was cringing from start to finish. There were even a few times I ended up banging my head against the wall because it was so horrendous. My expectations weren't high by any means. On the contrary, I was expecting this movie to suck hard and I at least thought I was prepared for the worst... but nope. So why does this movie reek? If I only knew where to start...

I guess the best place to start would be the plot... or lack thereof. When I first heard of Twilight's story, I thought it sounded like a standard generic teen romance/fantasy plot... and it is. The plot itself wasn't God-awful, but the way it was executed was just so poorly done. The love story is the main focus, but there is an ongoing subplot involving a gang of three evil vampires who sent their sights on Bella. This subplot feels so tacked on and shows up so abruptly that it feels quite unnecessary. When you also throw in some pointless drama between Bella and her estranged father, you essentially have a soap opera-caliber storyline... and believe me, that's not a good thing. To add to the weird stories, the writers also decided to throw in some of the worst and most cringe-worthy lines I have ever heard! I haven't heard such laughable romance dialogue since the love scenes in the Star Wars prequels. No matter how you look at it, it just sucks!

One scene that absolutely drove me crazy is the scene where Edward reveals to Bella that he is a vampire. The scene takes place in a forest out in the middle of nowhere, and Edward is going on about how he much he wants Bella's blood, while Bella is just standing there not bothered by this at all. First off, why isn't that she was not terrified right there? All I know is that if someone revealed to me that they were a bloodthirsty monster and they wanted to kill me, I'd be freaking out! She had just met him, and their relationship up to that point consisted of mainly awkward silences and two word conversations... so why trust this guy so much. Sure, Edward may have saved Bella from getting hit by another car, but the writings on the wall. That scene just confused me... it threw logic out the window in favor of some overdone romance movie cliches. Immediately afterwards, the story progressed to the infamous "sparkle scene." I knew that was going to be cheesy and stupid... but OH GOD!!! I thought at least the worst was done. There's no way it could get any dumber than a sparkling vampire... until they got to the vampire baseball scene. Do I really need to say any more than that?

When you have bad writing, what usually follows is bad acting. Twilight is no exception. Generally, I might give the actors the benefit of the doubt and say that you can only do so much with a bad script, but not this time. Since everyone plays second fiddle to the two main leads, I'm only going to focus on Edward and Bella. First you have Kristin Stewart as Bella Swan. She has some of the most awkward facial expressions I've ever seen from an actor. I know her character is supposed to be out of her comfort zone, but she looks totally confused and uncomfortable throughout the whole movie. For nearly every take, it looked she was thinking "Get me out of here! Get me out of here! Now!!!" Of course, if I acted in a movie like this, I would probably be thinking the same thing.

Then you have Robert Pattinson as Edward. I guess he's mainly there as eye candy for the girls, because he sure didn't deliver with a performance. What disappoints me the most is that when I watch this movie, I feel like that Pattinson has the ability to give a decent performance, but for whatever reason he just doesn't. Nearly every one of his lines are delivered with soap opera staccato and goes beyond the realms of melodrama every time the camera focuses on him. This is a problem with both Edward and Bella, and could have easily been improved had Catherine Hardwicke (the director) just given a little more direction to her actors.

Now the million dollar question... was there anything in the film I liked??? Well, I will admit the cinematography wasn't bad. The scenery was okay and the camera crew at least took the time to create a decent-looking movie. Don't get me wrong, its nothing amazing, but I will give credit to DoP and Hardwicke for making a little effort. For that alone, it doesn't deserve a zero star rating.

With that being said, I really can't think of anything else I enjoyed about this movie. I knew this was going to suck, but WOW! This was one of the first movies in years that has actually made me furious. I actually stood up on more than one occasion and shouted, "WHO THE HELL WROTE THIS S***!!!" If you're reading this, you're probably in one of two different classes. You probably either hate Twilight as well and agree with everything I've written. On the other hand, you might enjoy the series and think I'm just nitpicking, I didn't watch this with the right mindset, or I just don't understand because I'm a guy and this movie wasn't aimed toward a male demographic. First off, I may nitpick more often than not, but I am most definitely not the kind of critic who lets little hiccups here and there ruin the movie-going experience. When I give a bad review, its because I found A LOT of serious problems. As for not watching this movie with the right mindset... I set my standards extremely low, and prepared for the worst. For the movie to not meet my really really really low expectations, that means its really bad. Finally, even though this is a romance movie geared toward teen girls, I have seen tons of chick flicks a million times better than this. I may not be a huge romantic film fan, but I still know a crappy movie when I see one.

As I mentioned before, the movie may have a semi-decent look to it, but that just barely disguises the fact that this movie is nothing more than a glorified soap opera! Twilight is by far one of the most poorly written, overacted, and stupid movies I have ever seen. It was a total waste of my time and I can only hope that this stupid fad dies down soon so that this series can become nothing more than a dumb pop culture relic of the past!

My review: Half Star out of 5!!!