Warning: This is a brutal, bolt, and somewhat offensive review – not vulgar or inappropriate, but harsh and mean. Every point is backed with evidence.
- Who's going to like it: A movie for teen girls and lonely middle-age women, based on a book made for people who have never read a good book before
No matter how bad this or any other reviews for Twilight are,
the movie will still make millions and millions of dollars. Because
there are so many blind fans of Stephenie Meyer’s books, the movie is
critic proof. So I’m going to try my best to convey to you how awfully
bad this movie is so you don’t waste your time or your money in
supporting talentless entertainment.
THE STORY
Twilight tells
the story of an awkward teen named Bella Swan who moves to the small
town Forks, Washington to live with her dad. It doesn’t take time for
Bella to fall for a strange outcast classmate Edward Cullen.
After
Edward shows supernatural speed and strength while saving her from
being smashed by a runaway car, Bella begins to question his powers.
Shortly thereafter she finds out that he and his family are
“vegetarian” vampires, feeding solely on animals – not humans. Instead
of being afraid of their potential danger, Bella flocks to them and
falls in teen-love with Edward.
The
real plot and conflict doesn’t enter until 90 minutes into this
two-plus-hour movie when a trio of evil vampires (meaning they feed on
humans) introduces themselves to the Cullens. After catching a whiff of
Bella’s flesh, two of the three set their sights on draining her veins
– so much so that they follow her across the United States.
PROBLEMS WITH THE STORY
Twilight very well could have been a great story. But it’s not. It’s boring. Nothing ever happens.
The
way the story is told is insulting to an audience. The movie leaves
blatantly obvious hints at where the story will be going in the next
installments. While leaving the theater, I asked my 14-year-old Twilight know-it-all sister-in-law if my predictions on each of the next three storylines were correct. Sure enough, I was dead-on.
The
idea of vampires has been around for hundreds of years. For some
reason, Meyer decided to rewrite their mythology. Her vampires can go
out during the daytime. If sunlight touches their skin, it only shows
them the way they really appear – sparkly skinned. Stakes through the
heart don’t kill vampires; you must remove their heads and limbs, and
then set them on fire. But like the vampires in Underworld, these ones are mortal enemies with werewolves.
If
the conflict of the story does not become evident until the end of the
movie, then you have nothing driving the story up to that point. In Twilight, the plot doesn’t start until the third act. Even romance novels have
lame plots going on throughout them. For some reason, this one doesn’t.
Asking
your audience to suspend their disbelief over and over again is asking
a lot. If you expect us to believe that two vampires are going to
travel over a thousand miles to feed on one specific human when they
easily could have feasted millions of times on the course there, you’ve
got to give a good motivation for it. Don’t ask us to accept it just
because you say it.
Twilight is
filled with tons of holes. Some are filled in with mindless filler,
others left wide open. Considering how big and anticipated this movie
is, by now, there should have been some thought put into this
production.
PROBLEMS WITH THE MOVIE
Had Twilight been
subject to a good studio treatment (including rewriting, casting bigger
stars, and earning a big budget), it could have been a decent, if not
great, movie. But it wasn’t. It was made by a tiny independent studio –
and it shows. It suffers because of that.
Certain moments of Twilight are
great. They are well done and work perfectly. But those moments are few
and far between. The majority of the moments between the memorable good
ones are so awful that they completely undo the positives made by the
good ones.
Casting nearly all no-name actors was a brave decision. Kristen Stewart, mostly known for her role in last year’s Into The Wild,
is a fantastic young actress that brings the most acting talent to
movie. In the moments of the film that work, she’s exceptional as
Bella. But in the moments that don’t work, she’s bland. (Wait until you
see her minute-long scene where she’s cross eyed).
Robert Pattinson, known only for his role in the Harry Potter film
franchise, brought nothing to the role that couldn’t have been done by
any awful young actor from the CW network. For the majority of the
movie, he acts like he’s trying to be the coolest guy in the world,
wearing the most obvious fake-colored contact lenses. The rest of the
time he tries acting like the lab-created hybrid child of Jason Bourne
and James Bond, but is completely unsuccessful at reaching any level of
thier badassness.
Twilight was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who also directed such horrible flicks as The Nativity Story and Lords of Dogtown –
and it shows. The tone and feeling of the movie is never consistent.
Most of the time it feels like a bad blend of an episode of Supernatural, a bad horror movie and any given Michael Bay blockbuster, constantly spinning around the actors and over-using slow motion. Twilight feels like it was directed by an undergrad BYU film student. My dreams have better direction than this film.
No
review of this movie is complete without mentioning the lack of
decent-looking special effects. The stunts that involve gravity defying
jumping or climbing look just fine since we’re now used to seeing wire
flying in movies. But the scenes that involve computer-generated
effects look downright terrible. In one scene, Edward throws Bella on
his back and has a high-speed dash up a mountainside. The final product
ends up looking like an old Looney Toons chase between the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, legs blurred and all.
CONLUSION
Twilight is
awful. I am not the only one who feels this way. Listen to the other
critics. Even my die-hard sister-in-law thought it was just “so-so.”
Listen to the polls. If you go to Twilight and
come out ranting and raving about how good it was, you are a liar. You
want it to be that good so bad that you’re in denial.
Twilight is
not worth the hype. It’s made for teenagers and middle aged lonely
women who have finally realized that life isn’t the fairytale they
wanted it to be. It’s for pathetic people looking for a fake romance
that doesn’t exist in this exaggerated form. It’s made for ignorant
people who have never read good literature.
Many people have said, “I want to see Twilight just
to see what it’s all about and why it’s considered so bad.” Here’s what
I say to you: If you’re that curious to see it, then go to a theater,
buy a ticket for Quantum of Solace or Bolt – anything – then walk into the Twilight. Don’t you dare buy a ticket that will put money in the pockets of people who don’t deserve it.
Beware that if you’ve never read the books and you see Twilight in
the opening weeks when the theater is filled with Meyer fans, then
you’ll probably hate the experience. Women and girls will be giggling
at inside jokes from the books that you wont understand. They’ll all
start cheering every time a new character appears onscreen for the
first time. You’ll hear a simultaneous scream of the name “Stephenie”
the second that Meyer makes her three-second cameo. Be prepared to be
annoyed.
Photo credit: Summit Entertainment
(0 1/2 out of 5)
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