Not as bad as you might believe it will be.

Rating: 8/10 (10 May 2020)

Now, I didn't go into this movie expecting much. I expected teen romance, vampires, all that good edgy stuff. And that is what I got- but I had my expectations low, so I think seeing what the movie actually did made like it quite a bit. Now, in reality I would give this movie a 7.5, not an 8, but I decided not to give it the short end of the stick and rate it just a 7, and I'll explain this. I will address the elephant in the room first, yes, it is cringy. Some of the scenes are pretty stupid- and make you laugh out loud when you aren't supposed to. No, it is not a masterpiece. There are some noticeable mistakes, but if you start watching this movie expecting it to be perfect, you're not going to have as much fun as you're supposed to, and you shouldn't even watch it at all. Now that I've addressed that, I'll talk about what I liked in this movie. Now, Bella is a very stereotypical teen movie protagonist. The way she acts, the way she speaks, her attitude, it's all very stereotypical. But, surprisingly, I didn't hate her. I thought she was written with enough care that you wouldn't hate her, even though all signs point to the fact that you should. Now onto Edward. He's a vampire. He's attractive. He does creepy things, but Bella likes him too much to care. Yes, this is all very much foreseen even before watching it, but once again, I don't dislike him. He's not perfect by a long shot- he's flawed for sure, and in the real world, he would probably be in jail. But this is a TEEN VAMPIRE MOVIE. You can't expect characters you can relate to or adore, it isn't fathomable to expect that. Robert Pattinson is a brilliant actor, and I'm completely aware that this isn't his best performance, but it isn't bad. It's good. Robert does well with the materiel he is given, and I applaud him for that. I thought the rest of the Cullen family was fun as well- I'm hoping they'll explore them more in the rest of the series. The side characters were good too, although I can't exactly name any of them, so I suppose they weren't that memorable to me at least? They could've done a bit more with them, but I get why they didn't. They aren't the mains, and they're humans. Yes, Bella is a human, but she is the main, so I know why they explored her. Another good thing about this movie is how it looks. Most of the shots were very clean and I thought the movie looked great in general- even with the very heavy filter on it. In fact, I think the filter compliments what type of movie this is supposed to be. It's supposed to be edgy, and the filter helps give it that look. In conclusion, this movie gets too much flack. Is it amazing? No, definitely not. Is it the horrid piece of film that people will lead you to believe it is? Absolutely not as well. If you go in with lower expectations, you'll enjoy it more. Please, watch and decide your own opinion on this movie. Don't let others sway you.