*snore*.......

Rating: Null/10 (29 January 2010)

Twilight follows shy Bella Swan as she embarks on the greatest adventure of her life. This teen flick is a typical girl meets boy romance with vampires mixed into the equation.
Catherine Hardwicke brings the successful adult teen book to the big screen. She creates a dark and edgy mood and gives the 'Twilight' saga some added bite. Hardwicke has previously written popular gritty drama 'Thirteen' with Nikki Reid, who plays Rosalie Cullen in 'Twilight'.
Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) moves from sunny Phoenix to dull and dingy Forks, after her mother decides to go travelling with her new husband. Whilst she is in Forks she enrols in a new school where she has no problem making friends. It is here in that she meets the mysterious Cullen family. She instantly captures the eye of Edward Cullen (Robert Patterson), but all is not as it seems, as the Cullen family hold a dark secret.
From the opening scene we are gripped as we watch an innocent deer being hunted by some sort of creature. The sweet deer is a metaphor for Bella as it shows us what's to come. We follow the story of Bella's story to Forks, whilst she narrates her reasons for leaving to live with her father. We then see the difference between Phoenix and Forks. We see long shots of Phoenix's mountains and then the camera fades into the snow capped mountains of Forks.
We follow Bella's story as she struggles to fit into her new surroundings. All the girls want to be her friend and all the boys want to go out with her but she does find someone she is interested in, a mysterious pale vampire. From the moment we meet Edward, the camera is drawn to him. Bella is instantly attracted to the mysterious Edward Cullen, played by rising British start Robert Patterson when she glances across the classroom at him, but he seems utterly repulsed by her. The next day Edward miraculously saves Bella from a potentially deadly car crash with what seems to be superhuman abilities. From that moment she is hell bent to find out more.
'Your hand is so cold' Bella say's as she gazes upon Edward, in what in my opinion is the pivotal scene of the whole movie. As Bella walks out of the police station, her father works in; everything starts making sense to her. She goes home to research about ancient legends in her tribal book we see her buying earlier in the film. She is instantly drawn to the phrase 'the cold one'. She then goes on to her computer and researches 'the cold one'. Then we have a montage of all the words that she has noticed and she associates with Edward; 'speed', 'strength' and 'cold skinned'. Then she see's 'drank blood', immortal', 'undead' and then finally 'vampire'. Then it fades into a picture of the vampire Nosferatu, the 1922 German expressionist horror film adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
That night Bella dreams about her and Edward. Edward is this classic vampire figure with Bella as his meal. She imagines it in an old fashioned way with over the top make-up. Bella suddenly wakes up and makes the connection between dreams and reality. Her whole world has been turned upside down; this is shown through slow motion.
As she looks across Folks High School she wonders if any of it real. She looks upon Edward and this seems to be one of the only times in the film in which he can read her mind. Bella walks into the forest; followed. The school represents the safety in her life and then her leaving that to go into the mystery of the woods. The setting of the woods links to the opening scene of the film. Bella has become the hunted deer and Edward is the hunter. At this point the tension is unbearable.
I have many mixed feelings about this movie. I love the story, but they should have made it a bit more interesting with a bit more action to grip the viewer through the whole film. The acting from Nikki Reid and Peter Facinelli is really good; they are really well suited for their parts. However, the good acting is over shadowed from the bad as the good characters are hardly in it and the main characters were played by terrible actors such as Kristen Stewert. The love scenes between Bella and Edward were cringe worthy and the bad CGI effects really put me off. Overall, I like the story but the bad acting and love scenes let this film down.