It's almost like they tried...

Rating: 1/10 (26 November 2008)

I understand that this is a movie for the people who have read the books. But that is no excuse for what I just saw.
I walked into the theater expecting the worst, hating myself. I saw the trailer a month ago and was underwhelmed. In fact, I was amazed that it was able to get even a 5.8. I only went to see the movie as a joke. But man, it is not very often that my expectations are exceeded as much as they were here.
It was terrible, for all the wrong reasons. The acting was decent, and Cedric Diggory (I don't know his real name, but it doesn't matter. This is what everyone is going to call him for the next few years anyways.) was actually pretty good most of the time. The lady vampire was angsty and annoying, but not to the point that it ruined the movie. The plot was pretty bad, but in better hands it could've worked. The scenery was pretty neat. The special effects were underdone but not absurd. And even that horrific camera work only accounted for about 10% of the pain (it was terrible, though. I understand zooming into the background and going out of focus is an accepted technique for transitions, but not several times throughout each scene.) No, people.
It was the dialogue.
I have never seen this amount of suck in a movie driven solely by dialogue. The script was melodramatic, boring and absurd. The narration was too obvious and unnatural. I left for 7 or 8 minutes in the middle to go to the bathroom/cry and when I came back, I had missed NOTHING. NOTHING. Things are supposed to happen in movies. If I had tried that during, say, the Dark Knight I would've walked back into the theater completely confused.
I say go see the movie just so you can experience watching something that can be so bad just because of the script.