Entertaining, albeit completely unintentionally.

Rating: 5/10 (12 December 2008)

Twilight - Based on the popular children's novels, Twilight is about high schooler Bella (Kristen Stewart), the palest resident of Arizona ever, as she moves to be the palest non-vampire in Washington. She meets smoldering young-looking vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and the two have the most awkward courtship in the history of film. Then he fights some of the most ridiculous and un-scary looking vampires ever to grace the silver screen with their presence.
That's really all there is to the plot, and man is it stretched over two hours. Luckily, the film is hilarious, albeit entirely unintentionally. All intentional attempts at humor fall flat. Basically Twilight seizes you with it's big awkward fist immediately, and rarely lets go. The best example (and there are many) is Bella's relationship with her dad, the always uncomfortable looking Billy Burke. There are spaces between their lines that you could drive a truck through. It's all just painfully awkward.
Some things kept running through my mind. Edward is supposed to have spent 108 years on this planet. In those 108 years, couldn't he have picked up some basic social skills? Pattinson seems to have watched Charlie Sheen's performance in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" for research on the undead, because he spends most of the film staring bug-eyed like he's strung out on meth. He gets the American accent all right, and that's the best I can give him. He's supposed to be cool. He's often just antisocial and creepy, especially with lines like "I enjoy watching you sleep." This line was hilarious by the way, and there are many that are almost as good. He has absolutely nothing interesting to say, and the makeup people have covered him in glitter for his sunlight scenes, presumably as the final rite of emasculation.
I expect so much more from Melissa Rosenberg, a writer on my favorite show Dexter. Stick with TV honey! Teen fantasy does your creepy off-beat writing no favors. I think the script was about 70 pages long, so they filled the rest with awkward silence, during which everyone seems to be struggling for their next line. Sweet jeepers, half the responses the actors give each other aren't even human sounding. What I said for Rosenberg goes for amateurish director Catherine Hardwicke, who should stick with her day job of production designer. She cannot film action or direct actors to save her soul. She has tried to give this the feel of teen angst but has instead come up with an awkward monstrosity that could put the combined talents of Michael Cera and Larry David to shame.
Bella is boring and, as mentioned, criminally pale. She's pretty, but I hate her, and her voice is bothersome. It's annoying to have followed a character that does not seem to give a crap about anything, and spends the entire film frowning. She also has the keen observational abilities of a squirrel for not guessing Ed was a vampire, or at least some sort of freakish being, two seconds after he stops a car with his hand. Neither does this freak out or intrigue anyone else in the vicinity, strangely. It's not Ed's weird behavior, aversion to sunlight or mind reading skills but his cold skin that tells Bella he's a vampire, thanks to the magic of Google. Thanks Google! It's so campy, silly and shoddily made that I should hate this film by all standards, but I had a great time. Ironically the less attached to the books the more fun you'll have. I'd give it a D for all fans but the youngest and most devoted. I haven't read the books but I'm sure it has been ripped to shreds on the journey to the film. But I had an wonderful time laughing at the film, minus puncturing points of boredom and a few times where I looked at my watch. One positive note: the soundtrack isn't half bad.
Awkward to the end and funny all the way through, Twilight gets a C