Vampire mambo-jumbo for lame-brained teens.

Rating: 3/10 (2 February 2009)

An ill-considered promise led to my ending up seeing this movie. Having discussed the novel series with the teenage daughters of some friends, I expected it to be gimmicky, vampire-themed teen trash, which it was, but even given that, it isn't very good.
For one thing, it does not really work as horror, since the vampires aren't really particularly frightening, they are simply Marvel heroes with an awkward appetite. Sure, given their strength, you wouldn't want them to get angry with you, but neither would you like to antagonize the Hulk. As a matter of fact, most of the vampires are actually rather nice, some have teeny attitudes, others are brats or plain nasty, others are quite chipper and BFF material (well, not really "forever", unless you manage to get bitten by one of them, which---unlike most of their cousins in film and literature---many seem to be rather reluctant to do). They are even pretty good-looking, in a Rococo makeup kinda way, and snappy dressers, too. The interior design of their abode has also come a long way since the count Vlad Teped in Transsylvania, and even though their sleeplessness has led them to do away with beds, their lack of appetite for, shall we say, regular fare luckily did not keep them from installing a kitchen---apparently on the off-chance that they'd befriend a doughy-eyed mortal chick. As a result, we get to see a gaggle of vampires cook dinner for our protagonist in their designer kitchen, and then go out for a round of baseball. The Prince of Darkness has arrived in 90210 and become the Brats of Twilight, and Mr. Stoker is rotating in his grave.
Well, okay, so it's not a horror movie, but maybe it is a romance? Not really. Dull teen chick falls for equally dull teen vampire, and vice versa. He does not want to bite her, cause he and his vampire colleagues are, and I am not making this up, "vegetarians", and he explains his plight by talking about how vegetarian food, while filling you up, somehow cannot, obviously, really satisfy. I wonder what they do with this part of the dialog in India... Obviously, living a really, really long time does not mean you learn anything. Besides the laughable premise, the fundamental problem with the romance angle is that, well, there really is no character arc. Both see each other, Cupid strikes, a little bit of high-school back and forth, and then it takes her five minutes of ham-fisted Web searching and a book order to figure out the "big secret" (and, remember, she is definitely not a rocket scientist). From then on it's "Hey, I know you're a vampire, let's get together shall we? Sure, come on over for dinner, meet the rest of the crowd." Two teens having a crush on each other, only one of them happens to be a vegetarian vampire. No big deal.
If you think that Hammer trivialized the vampire theme, you ain't seen nothing yet, specifically not this movie. Here, the whole vampire thing has nothing dark, nothing about good or evil, hell, God, Satan, sinful immortality, a painful existence in permanent darkness and seclusion, powerful at night and brittle and helpless by day, loss of identity in death---none of that. In fact, it seems positively attractive to be a vampire. Gone the Gothic feel of especially the early Hammer works and some later variations on that topic. The vampire theme is a gimmick, and because the old staples (cross, stake, water, sunlight etc.) weren't good enough for the iPod generation, these iVampires come with a whole new set of gimmicky attributes that no doubt dazzle the kids and have certainly been the focus of many middle-school discussions.
Okay, so no horror, lame romance, maybe it works as a drama? Alas, for that it would have needed better actors in the leading roles. Stewart and Pattinson simply cannot act, their performances are flat, which is not helped by the fact that their parts lack any depth whatsoever. Ironically, this is best documented by Stewart's voice over which is probably intended to add depth to the acting by making explicit thoughts that are not evident from what is happening on screen. In this case, however, the narration reveals that Stewart's character has just about as much depth as the acting led us to suspect, i.e. not much. It also does not help that Pattinson really does not look that part of a heart throb---I guess it must be that vampire-magnetism thing, but it sure isn't his looks (even with a tan), or his elegant charm.
Is there anything good about this movie? Not much. Burke and Clarke deliver decent work in their small roles. The technical work is mostly okay, but some of the special effects in the action sequences are "Crouching Tiger"-laughable---they may have edited out the wires, but you don't need to see them to know that they are there. No, unless you happen to be a middle-school girl, you must have something better to do with your time. Come to think of it, even middle-school girls should find something better than watching this dull trash.