Cheesefest!

Rating: 6/10 (9 December 2008)

When you can live forever, what do you live for? is one of the themes of Twilight, Stephenie Meyer's best-selling novel with the cult-like female fan base, the latest of a string of much-awaited pop lit-based flicks to explode on screen.
The first of a series of four, Twilight is told from the point-of-view of high school transferee Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), an ordinary girl from Arizona, who risks everything when she falls for teen vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). The reluctant beau realizes he has bitten off more than he could chew (pardon the pun) with his choice of girlfriend, when he has to forever fend off every mortal and monster out to get her.
A modernized myth ensconced in a forbidden love story, director Catherine Hardwicke had a similarly against-all-odds task of pleasing audiences, most of which are hard-core fans of the book. Since much of Twilight's power is said to come from Bella's thoughts, this can of course only be visually executed in a limited fashion. The protagonists' feelings are also very reliant on the intense looks and expressions exchanged multiple times, and the actors successfully transmit their frustrations to the audience, despite the widely-held opinion of getting a cast that fit better. Can't please them all! And so, equally moody music like Debussy's Claire de Lune and other more modern angst-ridden faves "15 Step" by Radiohead and "Supermassive Black Hole" by Muse is interspersed throughout to sustain the teen drama, but could not distract the audience enough to feel the full (over two hours) length of this movie. Not only was it overlong, it was painfully cheesy at several points, but for female teens to fawn over Twilight would be understandable.