this comment may contain small but unintentional spoilers of the movie.

Rating: 6/10 (10 January 2009)

I had never picked up the twilight book or read any of the other books in the saga. I had also only seen the movie trailer once. After seeing the movie, i quickly read the books the preceding weeks afterward for comparison. So a few points need to be made about the movie. Overall the movie was OK. It was not the best, and butchered the book in a few aspects-that actually made me uncomfortable. The book itself could almost be directly translated into a script the way it was written but was not. And the actual translation was extremely poor. The script was one of the main reasons that the movie failed. It altered the storyline in unnecessary ways and ultimately rushed through and left out important parts of the love story. I can see that they wanted to keep in mind the viewers that did not read the book; but it was absolutely unnecessary to show the "animal attacks" of the nomad vampires. That time could have been used to incorporate overlooked dialogue into the movie. Even the actors in the movie said that at times they did some improv and left out lines they thought were extremely cheesy. In order for the actors to compensate for the sub-par script; they actually tended to make up for it in body language/facial expressions that at times were a little over the top.
As far as the directing goes, Catherine Hardwicke made a nice attempt but ultimately lost the vision of the movie by getting caught up in unnecessary sub-plots and some artsy(?) camera work. The editing of the movie was also poor. It was so choppy and incoherent at moments that if you did not read the book you may not have known what was going on. It was like a marathon trying to sprint through scene after scene after scene-especially when some were very unnecessary and the ones that were missing were important(specifically the original meadow scene and biology lab, lunch in the cafeteria, etc). I know there's a time limit but seriously, some poor choices were made in the editing process. And what was with all the crazy zooms and camera angles? Those were a little overdone and were distracting at times.
As far as casting went, i think the casting directors deserve a pat on the back. All the characters were pretty similar physically to what i envisioned while reading the books. As far as the acting-it was okay; i felt the script ultimately led to that downfall as well. I thought Alice was good-possibly a little bit more bubbly though. Jasper was right on target. Jessica was right on target. Esme was exactly what i pictured. Emmet and Rosalie were also as i pictured. Carlisle was slightly different from what i pictured but i think the actor did a good job. Charlie was so on target it was not even funny-that is exactly how I envisioned him. The two main characters however are the most important. Kristen Stewart definitely looked the part for Bella swan, and even acted how I imagined Bella-however, Kristen over acted at some parts through body language(script again) and did not act enough at others; she also seemed a tad apathetic at parts; but still fit the role of Bella well. I think further development of the character on her part and fixing a thing or two would have made the job way better. Robert Pattinson is physically similar to the Edward i imagined while reading, however how can one fully fulfill the title of one of the most attractive men on earth? His acting was okay. It should be interesting to see how it progresses in the second movie. He seemed to over-act just a tad through body language/expressions etc.(probably due to the script again). He definitely gave his own spin on a pretty hard character to precisely pin-point.
The visual effects of the movie were a little disappointing, but that was obviously due to the small budget the movie was given. This also includes the make-up which seemed a little bad at times; especially with Carlisle. The stunts were okay, any fault with them is to be blamed on the tight movie budget as most of them had to be done the old fashioned way; and kudos to the actors for their okay wire-work. It really is not that easy when you have to center your weight and move without swaying in one direction too much.
The ultimate downfall of what could have been a good movie could be blamed on the directing, editing, and ultimately the script. The actors deserve a job well done with working with so little and even trying to compensate for the lack of dialogue with their body language and facial expressions; also the tight shooting schedule and budget. However, pivotal scenes were left out and the love story was jumpy going from "Hi" one minute to "I cannot live without you the next". The development of that should have been the main focus of the movie with a little bit of creative interpretation giving and taking some, but not the important dialogues where Bella and Edward actually get to know each other and the depth of their feelings for one another. I am glad that the movie was different from the book though. It was interesting to see how they interpreted it to the screen. I only hope that a better job is done with New Moon. It is going to have a different director so we will see what he brings to the movie if he reads all the reviews and takes some of the things into consideration. I also hope that he deviates a little from the book as it provides a breath of fresh air to be a little surprised from scene to scene.