Alert: Must read "Twilight" before looking at the Movie!

Rating: 4/10 (16 December 2008)

Where to begin. Well I have read the entire twilight saga recently. I read the book before I saw the movie Twilight. The movie isn't bad, but it isn't good either. The movie strayed so far from the content of the book and left so many questions unanswered. Firstly, the pace of the film is a problem. The scenes with Bella and Edward are so short that the audience doesn't really get the notion that they are madly in love with each other! (Bella is willing to risk her life and become a vampire for Edward. And Edward is willing to expose his coven just to be near Bella) And if someone watching the movie has never read the book they wouldn't understand why the characters were suddenly confessing their feelings to one another so fast. For example, when Edward asks Bella to meet his parents in the movie it seems rushed, but in the book there are plenty of scenes of Edward and Bella falling in love before this. Secondly, the most important scenes in the book are not even in this movie, or are, but not depicted correctly. Examples are the meadow scene and the blood type scene. With the meadow scene in the book, Bella and Edward finally open up to one another, and confess their undying love. Edward simply touching Bella's cheek brings a chill in the reader's spine. The scene is very romantic and important for the overall story of "Twilight." Yet, in the movie the meadow scene lasted less than 3 min. and consisted of Edward and Bella lying near each other staring into one another's eyes. Also the fact that Edward in the book had asked Bella if she wanted to go to the secret meadow (i.e a Date) showed the reader that he did like Bella. However, the movie completely ignores this and has Bella walking into the woods outside of her school for some odd reason. And when Edward follows her he tells her in what is supposed to be a scary voice, that she has to see how he looks like in the sun. (Cue the scary music) This made the whole scene unromantic. And then there are the actors!!! While I thought all of Bella's human friends were well casted, Edward and his family were not. Except for Alice, I thought she was perfect. The rest of the family seemed out of place. Especially Jasper...Was he trying to make people laugh with that face? And then there is Edward himself. It's simply way overdone, and overacted, but Edward isn't the main problem, It's Kristen's Bella. I have seen other movies this actress has played in, and she always brings a depressed vibe to all her characters. She portrays Bella as twitchy, certain, and extremely melancholy. Moreover, Bella in this movie appears to not really care for Edward. This can be assumed by the lack of personality Bella shows around him. She barely even laughs. So all in all this movie could have been much better, and it fell short. But a reader of Twilight will most likely find joy in merely seeing the few scenes that were adapted from the book.