Like the book I thought only the last quarter was any good

Rating: 4/10 (4 December 2009)

I'm not a huge fan of the books, I ended up picking up the first one to complete a 3 for 2 offer when buying Christmas presents. The book was OK, but I think directed at younger girls than me, I'm 26. Although enjoyable enough I thought it only got interesting after the baseball game.
I think the film is pretty much the same. Both leads are quite wooden but then again the characters in the book were kind of the same, so they're actually pretty accurate. I actually liked the whole sparkling thing, in my head when reading the book it had looked really garish but I think the film handled it well. Being a 12 rating in the UK I knew it wouldn't be violent in the final fight and it didn't need to be. The film looked good and I liked that the other kids in the school were normal looking, not all model pretty people like Gossip Girl. I assume this was to make the vampires look more attractive and it worked, but I still thought it was a nice touch. The acting wasn't great but I've seen worse. The only one I thought looked wrong was Carlisle. The others were pale but to me his look was obviously lots of makeup so it just looked strange.
My main problem with it is that even though the three "bad" vampires were introduced far earlier it didn't create any suspense so I didn't think it was necessary. And then in the final showdown, the only bit of the book i would have considered remotely like action, it seemed slow and stagnant with again no build up of tension. The initial meet on the baseball field was done really well and the escape was pretty good but there was no tension built up before the fight. Even if they added in the scene from the book where Bella decides to slip away from the others it would have helped but there was nothing.
All in all not the worst film I've ever seen but certainly not the best. I didn't get an emo vibe from it but it was definitely aimed at teenage and pre teen girls. I would have given it 2 but because I'm not its target audience I bumped it up a bit.