Lacking Any Substance and Depth.

Rating: 2/10 (18 December 2008)

Before I begin, I am a dedicated fan of the Twilight saga and have read all the books multiple times. I had very low expectations for this movie. I mean LOW. I had already begun complaining to anyone who would listen over the choice of Robert Pattinson as Edward. Turns out that the casting of Edward was among the least disappointing things about this movie. I wasn't even a huge fan of the dialog in the book, let alone in the movie. The relationship between Edward and Bella--prior to when Bella discovered what he was--was way too short. In the book, their relationship is deep and meaningful, in the movie, they take about 10 minutes of the total runtime to get to know each other properly. In some cases, the casting almost made me cry (Edward, Rosalie, Esme.) BUT in other instances, they did a great job. It took me a while to warm up to Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan, but by the time I got to the movie, I had begun to think she was a great Bella. Same thing goes with Ashley Green as Alice. At first, I hated the idea of Nikki Reed as Rosalie, but as the movie went on, I thought she suited the role well. Examples of perfect casting would be Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black, Jackson Rathbone as Jasper Hale and Peter Facinelli as Dr Carlisle. The baseball scene was probably the only scene in the movie that was true to the books description. By the end of the movie I was wondering what happened to the rest of it. I understand that they can't include everything, but they should've at least extended the meadow scene--It was a pivotal point in the book. It seemed to play out like a TV show with an introduction, conflict, climax, resolution within a small space of time. Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but it lacked the depth and substance that the book had. The main problem was they only touched on how strong Bella and Edward's connection is and how problematic this is for both Bella and the Cullens.