Twilight: A Review

Rating: 7/10 (23 March 2009)

A major surprise from me: I review a movie based off a book I refuse to read. Perhaps that isn't quite the right thing to say before a review, but you know what? It was going to come out anyway, might as well be now. My sister asked me to watch it, and being the nice older brother I am, I decided to watch it.
Stephanie Meyer's book "Twilight", based off the popular book series for young adults follows Bella, a young girl who moves from Arizona to Washington to live with her birth father after her mother and her boyfriend try to find a new house to live in. Bella is enrolled in School "During the middle of March" (I'm sure the distributing company thought carefully about releasing the movie on DVD on a Saturday, during the middle of March) Where she is oddly enough, gaining friends fast. The one group of kids she notices are the Cullens, a group of pale foster kids who all share a secret, and major plot point: they are vampires. The, uh, Good looking one of them all is Edward. At first, the two show very little feelings for each other, but that is not until they fall deeply and madly in love with each other. However, the two come from different worlds, so how can they make it work? Now, like I mentioned earlier, I have NOT read the book series (and I will live just fine without reading it, thank you very much). The movie, however, is something else.
There is a lot a person who doesn't like the book series (Like Myself, based on ignorance of actually trying to read it) could say about this movie, but oddly enough, the movie is for the most part, quite solid. The Teens (according to my sister, who has read the books) look a lot like their counterparts from the books, although for me, I was a little annoyed with the gray white faces, since almost everyone in the movie (Save for The Cullen family and Bella) has some melanin and even vitamin D, which, at one point, a kid addresses she did live in Arizona, so why does she look the way she does, but for crying out loud, must she look like the vampires she so desperately has the hots for? My major problem with the movie is Bella and Edward's acting abilities. Bella and Edward are on camera for most of the movie, so I suppose asking for a little variety in inflection would be kind of nice, but the two talk in an almost uninterested, continuous monotone that only adjusts in about the last hour of the movie. I would understand if Bella maybe sounded interested in discovering Edward was a Vampire, but she sounds as interested as learning that dogs have tails and the sun goes down everyday; It's annoying.
Edward too is a character who is at fault because of this monotone acting ability. I understand he's a vampire and all, but come on, can't you seem a little like you are in love with this girl? Another thing that frustrated me of this movie, again, bringing up acting is the annoying narration. I feel like at some point, the director felt we needed her to narrate what was going on on camera in order to understand Edward didn't show up in a parking lot, or what we were confirming about Bella's feelings toward Edward were true, when it's on camera, or having been shown just one scene earlier, when in reality, you could have filled those moments with the movie score or something.
The character's acting does get better, again, in the last hour, so for one hour, you have no real connection between this vampire and this mortal girl, then it actually gets a little better, introducing this whole idea of abstinence and a villain we really don't care about, even after the villain shows up in the last 45 minutes, I really didn't care about this guy, not even enough to care for why he was a villain to begin with.
The movie, even with all those negatives listed above, is still okay, I guess. The special effects on the Vampires (If you've read the book, you'll know) are interesting, and some of the set designs are exceptionally gorgeous, I'm referring to the forests and shots of the mountains, with the amazing clouds swirling around in the sky. Excluding Edward and Bella, the acting is okay, and the characters don't come off cheesy, which in comparison to the vampires in other movies of recent years, have become very much so.
Overall, fans of the book will be pleased (My sister was) and will be awaiting the sequel (My sister is) to see how can the whole story continue. As for me, judging the movie, the acting is only okay, the romance story annoys the hell out of me (but I'm a different kind of romantic) and if I plan to watch a sequel with my sister, I truly hope the two kids on screen can take some acting lessons, Please.