Twilight Leaves Trail of Confusion

Rating: 3/10 (25 November 2008)

The much revered and respected writings of Stephanie Meyer exploded on the scene back in 2005 and left the reading public wanting, no, begging for more TWILIGHT! Although, once released, these books targeted younger teen girls, many adults (namely women, ages 20-45) found these novels just as enticing and addictive. I, myself, am a big fan of this series and have truly enjoyed reading each book (Three times each... what?! Don't judge me!) When I caught wind of Twilight being pushed into production I was beyond excited (Yes, I was one of those people who bought their ticket online, 3 weeks before November 21st). With much anticipation I watched casting choices, photo shoots and trailers and despite much controversy over some of the actors chosen for Twilight's coveted roles, I was still hopeful and trusting that this film would blast the competition out of the water. Although I didn't expect the movie to surpass the quality of the books, I was still ever hopeful that I would be entertained. Unfortunately, however, as I watched the film I grew more and more confused. First, where was the meadow scene? This was the most important part of the first book and it was chopped to pieces via a random walk (or romp) through the forest behind Forks High School whereby Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson awkwardly exchanged even choppier dialogue. This brings me to my second point. The Twilight actors. Why did Rob Pattinson look constipated when Kristen Stewart's character walked into the Biology room? I know he's supposed to show pain but not that kind of pain. Also, what was the deal with Jasper (I can't remember the kid's real name, sorry)? Bella's scent is only strong to Edward yet when Jasper first sees her he looks like he's in more pain than Edward. Finally, Kristen Stewart. Why on earth was she flopping around like a fish out of water after being bitten by James? Yes, I get that she was burning (as was made evident by the over-acting). The scene reminded me of a couple of kids playing cops and robbers, where one kid pretends to get shot by the bad guy and he starts jumping around pretending to die. In combination with this and the ridiculous look on Rob Pattinson's face (looked like a bad orgasm), the whole theater was laughing hysterically. I felt horribly for these people! What direction were they getting that said, "Yes! That's great!" Finally, the script. Oh the script! If you didn't read the books you would have no clue as to what was going on. If you did read the books (as most did) you were at least able to follow the general idea. However, in adding random scenes, i.e. the killing sprees of James, Victoria and Laurent, it destroyed the flow of the story! It was so incredibly choppy, just jumping randomly from sequence to sequence. I get that Catherine Hardwicke wanted to keep this film true to the book but just taking lines, word-for-word, from the book and skimping on the actual story line makes for one heck of a disaster. This is just my opinion, of course, but Catherine Hardwicke tried to film this movie the same way she filmed Thirteen (p.s. actually a good movie) and failed miserably. She proved to be a one hit wonder, at best. Speaking of Hardwicke, a lot of people have wondered why Nicki Reed was cast to play Rosalie. EX: Nicki is short and is curvier while Rosalie is described as tall and slender. I'm not saying that Nicki Reed is not a good actress or a beautiful girl because she is but she very simply did not fit this part at all. The sad part is that I think the actors in this movie are actually quite talented, however, in taking into consideration the poor direction given, the rush on getting this film finished before Harry Potter and the choppiness of the script these poor individuals didn't have an opportunity to make a quality film. I really hope that Summit pulls what Warner Brothers did after the first Harry Potter and can the director (WB did this after the first HP film). This film had the potential of being the best movie of the year (not based on box office numbers which, by the way, most of the tickets were purchased based off of the popularity of the books not the trailers) in quality, but it failed miserably. On a lighter note, I do think that Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson were excellent choices for Bella and Edward. They, unlike the movie, have the potential to be big players in the Hollywood arena. I truly look forward to seeing what they do next and I am hopeful that action will be taken to ensure a much better New Moon and Eclipse (Breaking Dawn has not yet been signed on to be made into a film). All in all, this film left much to be desired but not in the same way as the books. Very disappointing.