"The lion fell in love with the lamb"

Rating: Null/10 (30 October 2011)

Twilight, the first in a series of three narrations, is a two hour long movie that is no doubt a chick flick of young love, sure to appeal to teenage girls with many of their mothers included. A mysterious, but dreamy Edward (Robert Pattinson) and an equally attractive Bella (Kristen Stewart) have very few words for one another, but share an attraction that even they don't understand. The "hard to get" game played keeps a strange, sexual tension in the air and that is exactly where it stays. Edward has the restraint of a saint. No sex scenes, sorry about that moms, best to know now rather than wait the entire two hours and be disappointed if you were looking for a steamy love story, but it does make it safe for the tweens to watch. The love story is there, but it develops slowly and out of the norm, no high school girl should fall this hard and this quick for guy of such strange allure. The big hype surrounding the book and movie was clearly just that, all hype. The first hour of the movie drags on as the setting takes place in a modern day, small town called Forks, were most scenes display the evidence of rain coupled with the lack of sunlight. A plus for the town is the panning and high-angle shots of the camera randomly treating the viewer to breathtaking scenes of Washington's snow covered mountains, ocean surf, and the glistening, foggy forests, creating some romanticism and a calming on the surface in between focusing on the complexity of the characters attraction.
This movie is similar to a chess game, in that one person does not make a move until the other person does. Moves are made slowly and deliberately. There are some interesting scenes of family meetings, secrets revealed, and enemies attacking, that push the young couple even closer and the will to survive strengthens their bond. For the complete romantic, it is termed, "The lion falls in love with lamb", and one can only imagine being the girl who is loved by a dangerous vampire. If one is looking for a good movie, take a pass, it is simply a movie of incomplete sentences and conversations. Each character responds to one another a bit awkwardly and hesitantly but it obviously works and continues into a love story that is just the beginning of a three part book series. That is the problem with watching a movie in a series, the viewer is left hanging in the end, wondering what will happen next and hoping not to forget important details until the sequel is released. The movie gets a thumbs up for a summer romance that can be picked apart for deeper meanings. It is refreshing to see a relationship build without sex clouding everything up, coupled with just enough strange violence to feed the need for danger. But a thumbs down for acting and dialogue. Looking beyond this, the movie was successful in capturing the box office number one spot with young love, intrigue, and danger all the while tactfully avoiding messy sex scenes, and limited blood and gore. A decent chick flick, but the men might just want to stay home and find something on TV.