enough new twists on the genre to overcome its weaknesses

Rating: 7/10 (22 October 2010)

The extent to which you'll enjoy "Twilight" may well depend on just how much romantic melodrama and teenage angst you can put up with in a two-hour period.
Based on the insanely popular novel by Stephanie Meyer, this first in a series of tales dedicated to vampires and the-humans-who-love-them overdoses a bit on pasty faces and soulful ogling, but it still manages to revamp the genre in some unique and interesting ways. For instance, these bloodsuckers can apparently move around and function in daylight, or at least subdued daylight, which is pretty easy to find in the perpetually overcast Pacific Northwest where the movie takes place. Moreover, these vampires do not sleep in coffins and are able to thrive as well on animal blood as on human, being just a matter of willing oneself to do so.
Bella (Kristen Stewart) is a moody, seventeen-year-old high school student who comes to live with her police chief father (Billy Burke) after her mom ("24"'s Sarah Clarke) and step dad take off on an extended road trip across the country. Almost immediately, Bella discovers that there's something not quite right about Edward (Robert Pattinson), the mysterious and darkly brooding boy who seems to have taken a more than casual liking to her. As the feeling is mutual, Bella takes it upon herself to find out everything she can about the enigmatic lad, eventually discovering, with a little help from Google, that Edward is indeed one of the undead, albeit a dreamy one for a girl with a matching pallor who's already a bit emo herself.
The self-loathing vampire, tormented by what he is and what he has to do to survive, has been a staple of the genre ever since Barnabas Collins hit the scene in the 1960s, and Edward certainly follows in that tradition. The other thread the story pulls from is the doomed-teenage-romance theme a la "Romeo and Juliet," only in this case the young lovers are separated not by warring families but by the fact that they hail from different species. This brings the added complication to their relationship that if Edward becomes too uncontrolled in his passion for Bella, he might just wind up quite literally devouring her. This sex-equals-death theme has always been a major and recurring subtext running right through vampire folklore, and the story does a nice job bringing it to the surface.
The romantic moments are, for the most part, handled with tenderness and delicacy, and the scenes with Edward's "family" - who have all sworn off human blood and are trying to live at peace with their human neighbors - are some of the cleverest in the movie. Moreover, the film generates a good deal of energy and suspense in its latter half, though it does tend to sag a bit in its closing moments.
Written by Melissa Rosenberg and directed by Catherine Hardwicke, "Twilight" isn't as sophisticated or imaginative as the similarly-themed "True Blood," but for a tweenie romance with a supernatural twist, this ain't half bad.