This would sure be better if everyone were trying a bit harder...

Rating: Null/10 (24 June 2014)

Hating on Twilight in book or movie form has lately become a way for pretentious self-appointed critics and lecherous "players" who hate Stephanie Meyer's views on sexuality to establish their "street cred" with their fellow losers on the internet. To be sure, I can see why guys would tend to keep their distance from this series; in book and movie form alike it's got "chick flick" written all over it. The focus is firmly fixed on Bella to the point of rudely shunting several potentially interesting subplots aside.
On the other hand, unlike a great many of my fellow males, I can also understand its appeal to the girls who are its target audience. To any of the aforementioned blowhards who profess not to understand its commercial success, I can only say: the continuing presence and profitability of the Lifetime Channel and its movies-of-the-week must also be quite the baffling mystery to you. Hey, Twilight is all about a shy girl who can do no wrong and doesn't realize how ravishingly attractive she really is being at the center of attention for every single guy in range, including sexually idealized vampires and werewolves. What part of that, pray tell, would not appeal to young girls in their more awkward years of adolescence?
My main complaint about this film is what a waste everyone involved seems to have made of their potential. It's overlong for an adaptation of what was a relatively short and easy read of a book, and a lot of what would have been worth keeping from the book (a brief recounting of the Cullen clan's history, a scene in which Edward demonstrates that yes, he can still eat human food though it no longer appeals to him, etc.) is cut in favor of lots and lots of awkward silences, awkward stares, and awkward conversations that come off looking and sounding like nothing more than padding. Yes, such awkwardness is actually pretty common to real life. No, we in the audience do not care to be bored with these long pauses. Come on, cast and crew, do we really have to spell this out for you? The story's supposed to be a massive overdose on romantic feminine fantasy with lots of sexy vampires and werewolves thrown in. What part of that description calls for mundane realism?
Speaking of awkward stares, the relationship between Bella and Edward in this movie seems to consist of almost nothing else. I can understand the "show, don't tell" principle behind some of this (though Bella's many voice-overs are, I might point out, a massive violation of that principle), but what's being shown isn't really what we're supposed to be seeing according to the book. What we should be seeing is Edward as a predator who's falling in love with his prey. Heck, that's simultaneously the Twilight series' greatest appeal to its target audience and most disturbing aspect to its critics: that a lot of girls are strangely turned on at the thought of being the subject of a troubled handsome guy's obsessive and nearly-uncontrollable desires, even if those desires come dangerously close to making him a creepy stalker.
So fine, Stephanie Meyer wants this story to be all dark and edgy by exploring a predator's appeal to his prey? Then let it be dark and edgy. Let us see Edward licking his chops with that creepy gaze that fairly shouts "Why, Bella, you look good enough to eat!" While we're at it, fans and critics alike have noted that the whole Twilight series is a big metaphor about sexual temptations and promoting chastity. Fine: that metaphor actually mixes pretty nicely with the whole "A shy girl loves a stalker..." theory to make it the somewhat more palatable "...if he's polite about it and keeps his grubby paws to himself until she willingly gives herself over to him."
As long as we're being darker and edgier here, there's no need to apologize for those creepier implications: let the metaphor be writ large! Let Edward alternately stalk and try to restrain himself from stalking his prey, and let Bella mistake his hungry looks for the belligerent sexual tension it seems to be (and to which it does eventually convert). That's certainly better than what we actually saw up on the screen, which is Edward looking passive-aggressive and bipolar and not the least bit interested in Bella for either culinary or sexual purposes while she understandably keeps asking him what his problem is. Where's the chemistry?
While we're at it, since the movie departed considerably from the book by cutting away from Bella to other characters once in a while, why not roll with this by showing a few more scenes from Edward's point of view? In the book, he tells Bella something along the lines of "You don't think you're especially attractive? Yeah, well, that's because you don't have to hear all the other guys' thoughts the way I do." Letting us hear a sampling of those thoughts from his point of view would have gone a long way toward making this a better movie.
Hey, for all the narrowness of its appeal and the flack it gets, Twilight isn't really a bad flick. I've seen worse; in fact, I've seen a *lot* worse. What I'd really like to see, though, would be everyone trying a little harder. Were the cast and crew mostly just making this movie for the paycheck? Hey, that's all right: a lot of Hollywood's best movies were made by hardened mercenaries who'd rather have been doing something else. That's still no excuse for writers, editors, actors, and producers giving us a mediocre performance, though. It might not be quite Oscar-level material, but this story had the potential to be a very entertaining movie; how very disappointing to see so much potential frittered away.