Modern-day vampire story lacks bite

Rating: 2/10 (14 April 2009)

An insufferable female protagonist and a beguiling yet empty male romantic lead make up this ill-judged teen Vampire flick that lacks bite. Helmer Catherine Hardwicke has fashioned a modern-day Vampire allegory crudely linking burning heterosexual sexual desire to vampirism. This conceit is trite and dated and also surprisingly simplistic. The notion that its two romantic leads are just looking for love in spite of the vampiric element is crudely realised and formulaic and is no different than Romeo and Juliet - yawn.
Perhaps stiffled by the novel's limitations, Twilight fails to reinvigorate the Vampire genre and might as well have been released in 1987 given its rural setting and distinct lack of style. By their nature, Vampires reject any notion of sexual desire as mere impediment to their desire to extract blood from humans, but this point escapes Hardwicke's naive film. Furtehrmore, she didn't realise that Vampires are inherently bisexual by nature and the heterosexual love story it uses is as contrived as ever. A missed opportunity.