look beyond the pretty faces

Rating: 5/10 (14 December 2008)

when i first heard of the twilight series i figured that it was just some stupid romance. finally, after hearing all the positive and negative reviews(and seeing several of the trailers on TV, i decided that i couldn't fully have my own opinion of the books until i read them. i was a bit surprised when reading twilight. it was not something like the house of night series or any of those other stupid romance novels. it was about 2 people who loved each other to the core but whose romance was perilously dangerous. what makes this romance so additctingly sweet is that it is taboo/forbidden fruit(whatever you want to call it). both protagonists can't be as close to each other as they want to be because of the danger of one injuring/accidentally killing the other.
anyway, i can also see why this book got such awful reviews from more"mature" readers. Edward Cullen and Isabella swan-charming as thy are- are in a well disguised obsessive and somewhat self destructive relationship. there's Edward-who before finally getting with Bella spied and followed her, and then there's Bella- who couldn't last 1 hour without Edward. I'm not saying that Stephanie Meyer is a poor writer-on the contrary, i believe she is very good. its easy for someone to write about the negative aspects of a relationship in novel and able to get it across the reader that thats bad. its much much much harder to write about the above mentioned but make it seem like its o.k maybe even romantic. and thats what mer did- she made the whole Edward spying and Bella"cant live without Edward" thing seem what was supposed to be in relationship, what is o.k. she was able to get the reader to think that that wasn't obsessive at all. but enough of that back to the movie review:
i was very disappointed with Catherine hardwicke's take on twilight on the big screen. the chemistry between Edward and Bella had nothing leading up to it-it just popped out of nowhere, suddenly they were in love. also the dialog and special effects were very cheesy and poor. they really could have done without the long voice overs to. if they are making new moon into a movie, i just hope to god that Catherine hardwicke either gets better at her job or someone better gets to direct because if she gets to do this again then shes going to ram the franchise into the ground and add more to twilights dwindling reputation. and as for my title- to all you twilight fans who loved the movie because Edward is beautiful-STOP MAKING REVIEWS BECAUSE THE LEAD CHARACTER IS HOT! LOOK BEYOND THE PRETTY FACE!!!! look at the story,the plot, then write!