A pretentious misguided attempt at a serious vampire movie.

Rating: 1/10 (4 April 2009)

First let me make two thing clear with regarding my review. I have never heard of the Twilight books and didn't even know about them until after I saw the movie so I am reviewing it as a move rather than an adaptation of a book. Secondly this is clearly aimed at juveniles (which I didn't know before hand or I might never have watched it) and I am a married middle aged man with a kid so I am certainly not the intended audience.
But what is it about serious vampire movies that makes them so awful? Certainly Tony Scott's The Hunger and the more recent and more dreadful Blood and Chocolate come to mind. They really do come off as being pretentious and arrogant and with very little entertainment value. Sic Fi and horror can pull off serious movies why can't the vampire genre? In the movies I've mentioned the lack of human interest stories, centrally as far as humans we can relate to is completely missing and Twilight is no exception.
I was cringing as the lead character badly acts through her hot crush on some gorgeous girly boy with a bouffant hairdo and pale skin that Gary Newman would have killed for that she has to sit next to in the science lab. This was more embarrassing than watching the worst 80s new wave music videos. Why oh why do vampires always seem to be either stuck in the 70s punk or 80s new wave stage. Were they all sired back then? Was there a vampire epidemic that I missed during my childhood?
Anyway I won't bore you by going scene by excruciating scene through this teenage coy glance-fest as the two main characters finally figure out they love each other, despite the face that one of them might eat the other for brunch. Bad acting and plot holes aside suffice it to say if you are 15 years old you might like this movie but if you're a full grown adult and way past the puppy love stage give this a miss or bring a sick bag with you. Corny, hack handed, cringe worthy and squirm inducing... hey! Maybe it does capture being a teenager quite well? Maybe, just not in a good way.