An awful movie badly adapted from a poorly written book

Rating: 1/10 (1 March 2012)

It would take weeks to sum up how bad not only this film is, but all the Twilight movies and Twilight books. This cultural phenomena of poorly written, poorly acted popularity is nothing short of maddening. But, let's just take a look at this film on its own.
Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is a teenage girl who is moving from Arizona to Forks, Washington. She is moving to live with her father because her mother and new husband are moving to Florida and she wants them to have a chance to "be alone". (This is our first introduction to the ridiculousness of the character/series. WHAT teenage girl would not only be OK with uprooting her life, but offer to move in with a father she had almost no relationship with?). When she arrives in Forks, it's clear that Bella has an awkward and distant relationship with her father, played just as stiffly by Billy Burke. Bella quickly becomes wildly popular with her unrealistically diverse classmates, who, by their reaction, appear to have never met anyone new. She is also clearly admired by her father's friend's son, Jacob (Taylor Lautner) who lives on an Indian reservation. But Bella has almost no interest in all the boys pining for her affections or girls trying to be her friend. The only person who captures Bella's attention is Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), the only young man who seems not only disinterested in her, but seems to dislike her. All the other kids tell Bella that Edward and his adopted siblings are "weird" and keep to themselves. Jacob even tells Bella that, according to legend, Edward and his family are the "cold ones" enemies to his tribe, the wolf people.
After Edward saves Bella's life by stopping a truck about to hit her with his bare hands, she suspects something even more compelling about him. Oddly enough, no one else notices Edward saved her, and after some internet searches into the mythology of "cold ones", Bella discovers Edward is a VAMPIRE! She meets with him in the woods and tells him she knows what he is and still wants to be girlfriend. Despite the fact he tries shows her how dangerous, fast, strong, andsparkly he is and that he avoided her because he desperately wants to drink her blood, the two eventually develop a relationship. Bella meets his family, they play "vampire baseball" and end up having to save her from the "bad" vampires that actually eat people.
The actors in this movie give a terrible performance. Kristen Stewart is completely devoid of emotion and expression. Robert Pattinson, while a good actor in other films, is so stiff it is difficult to watch. Along with that, he struggles to hide his British accent, and the make-up used for the "Adonis-like" Edward Cullen makes the normally handsome Pattison look ugly. Even if the acting was decent the script and lines are PATHETIC. They are groan worthy, but that is probably due to the poor material they had to work with. As for the plot, it is stupid. It is completely unrealistic, even in terms of being a fantasy. The mythology makes no sense and throughout the series, seems to contradict itself just to make the plot work. Bella Swan is boring, bland and so easy to make fun of it's almost silly. Edward is whiny and annoying. He seems nothing like someone who has been alive for a century, as he still acts like a dumb teenage boy. On top of that, the main vampires have nothing vampiric about them. They only drink the blood of animals, never people, they live in a family setting, they can go into the sunlight and sparkle instead of burn, they have no fangs, they don't have sex before marriage, and they are not scary. As for the romance, there is NO reason the two should be together, or have such intense feelings for each other. The only reason Bella pursues and "loves" Edward is because she finds him attractive and he seemed disinterested in her. The only reason Edward "loves" Bella is because she smells good, and her blood is like his "own personal heroin". These are very contrived, lame, and somewhat troubling reasons. I must also add that it is clear there is a message of abstinence, especially with Edward controlling himself to both not have sex with Bella, nor drink her blood. Many parents like this message to teen girls, but the fact that it equates Edward having sex with Bella to him killing her, is nothing short of disturbing. Finally, for such a greatly anticipated movie, this film had horrible special effects. This is surely the worst movie I have ever seen, and possibly the worst "popular" movie ever made.