What a letdown

Rating: 3/10 (21 November 2008)

To be honest, I was extremely disappointed with the way this movie turned out.
The hype for it was monumental and I am a die-hard fan of the series myself so I expected a lot from it. I'm still in shock with how fantastically horrible it turned out.
The acting, for one, has to be the worst I have ever seen. Robert Patterson was supposedly perfect for the part of Edward, but not only was he not handsome enough to be Edward but he completely butchered all the lines that Edward had in the novel. His voice was too slow and hesitant, whereas Edward was supposed to be composed and highly intelligent. The changes that he underwent in the novel were not at all apparent once they were transferred to the screen. As for the part of Bella, Kristen Stewart suited Bella very well physically, but when it came to acting she also fell short. Her speech was consistently monotone and both her and Edward had a problem with saying the word "um" or pausing abruptly when there should be lines filled with quirky sayings or questions that they throw at each other. Most of the other actors were actually okay, but the lack of skill portrayed by the two main stars completely ruined the movie for me.
The scenes were also very different from the book. Perhaps showing multiple scenes of the mountains and the lake and trees was the Director's way of distracting the viewer from the horrendous slaughter of the Twilight novel that this movie was? Not only was the high school a LARGE high school, unlike that in the book, but very few scenes took place in there. No lunchroom chats between Bella and Edward took place except for one short one while standing in line. The Biology scene where they meet was excessively melodramatic and almost sickening in its portrayal of their initial reactions to each other. The majority of the scenes took place in the surrounding forest, which honestly did not play a large part in the book. Plenty of other scenes are butchered by this movie, but the worst one of all was the field scene where Bella and Edward were to have their first date. Rather then make it as romantic and planned as they had it in the story, they introduce this scene by having Bella somehow magically walk all the way from her school up into the woods where she tells him that she knows he's a vampire and then he drags her up to a field to show her what he looks like in the light. They have a short confrontation (that does follow the lines in the book, but is acted so horrendously that I many women in the theatre groaned with dismay) in which Edward pulls a tree up and then they lay down (in an extremely uncomfortable and unnatural position) and the scene ends.
The melodramatic nature of the entire movie, heightened by a score that was not at all suited for the true nature of Twilight, was a complete mood-killer. Even the action scenes were very old-fashioned and could have been done with better technology and filming. Overall, it was a huge letdown. I have to say that I don't think I'll ever be able to read Twilight again. This movie is, without a doubt, the worst movie I have ever seen. Plenty of you fans can attack me for this comment, but the simply fact of the matter is that the Twilight movie could have and should have been so much better.