No Chemistry

Rating: 3/10 (21 November 2008)

I didn't go into this movie with blinders on...I had seen reviews that weren't overwhelmingly positive, but I so adore the book that I deliberately pushed anything negative I had heard aside and practically *willed* the movie to be good.
It wasn't.
Seriously, I went in with the attitude that I would forgive almost anything and there were small irritants that I was more than willing to overlook. Continuity issues exist, but that is to be expected in a long book being made into a movie. Some scenes were left out, others were combined in ways that didn't necessarily make sense to me. The makeup was overdone in some ways and lacking in others. The special effects were....cheesy is the nicest word I can come up with.
All of that is forgivable in my eyes.
The real star of this movie should have been an electric chemistry between Bella and Edward, just the same as the book. That was the most critical part of the film and, in my own humble opinion, was the part that was a dismal failure. There was absolutely *zero* chemistry between these two. Not a single moment that made my breath catch, as the book did. Parts that should have been serious were almost laughable.
In fact, almost *none* of the actors portrayed anything like real emotion, as far as I could tell. By the end of the movie, there was no attachment to any of them whatsoever and even if the portrayals had warranted attachment, the storyline was so fast and choppy, it would have deterred me regardless. Pretty much the only standout was Billy Burke's performance as Charlie Swan, which ranked as the most nuanced of the entire film and provided the few moments of genuine humor I saw in it.
Overall, a truly disappointing film treatment of a wonderful book. If the same major players follow through with the series, I will likely be giving the rest of the films a miss.