not impressed

Rating: 1/10 (22 November 2008)

Let me preface this by saying that I went to see the movie as a 'parental guider' because I didn't want to send my salivating 14yr old alone into the other 'masses' of salivating 14yr olds who had been waiting what seemed like an ETERNITY (only to them) to see EDWARD CULLEN! & co., no telling what could come of all that! I attended with ZERO expectation of any depth of character, storyline, dialogue, substance, etc. and it did not disappoint. In my opinion it was exactly all of that: shallow characters, so-so storyline, and dialogue that seemed unnaturally forced and to have amounted to about 5 typed, double-spaced pages for a screenplay. I left the movie with something I wanted to stress to my daughters more than anything else that Hollywood has, yet again, painted a false picture of love and how it looks in real life. This movie (and so many others), paints the hero character, Edward, as uber interested, involved, preoccuppied and concerned for the heroine, Bella, which doesn't even come close to real life is! Boys don't think like that. They don't care like that, that don't agonize over teen girls like that. Of course, I understand that he is a vampire has other fictional reasons to be drawn to Bella, but I think it still imparts a false image of what teenage boys are capable of into the minds' of the movie's target audience (young,impressionable, teenage girls). In actuality, it's really quite the opposite, girls can and some do pine and agonize and involve themselves in the lives of their boyfriends, but boys don't. Not that it could never happen, but the chances of it happening in high school are not likely and not desirableat least not to this mother of three girls. What a rude awakening Hollywood has set up for our girls...if we as parents are not pro-actively dialoguing with our daughters about the realities of love.