I used to think I was up to date on modern pop culture. I'm not hip by any stretch of the imagination, but I at least thought I knew what was going on in the world. But then along came Twilight. I'd never actually heard of Twilight before the movie was released last fall, so I was amazed by the frenzy it caused. Teenage and preteen girls went absolutely bonkers for this movie, and I had no clue why.
It turns out that Twilight was based on the first in a series of novels written by Stephenie Meyer. The series got its start in 2005 and apparently developed a pretty rabid following, but again, I was thoroughly unfamiliar with them until the movie's release. Maybe it's because I'm not as much of a reader as I used to be, or because I'm not a teenage girl. I don't quite know for sure. But because both my sister and mother had read and enjoyed the books after the movie's hysteria started, I figured I'd see what the hubbub was all about. But in my case, I decided to skip all the books and head straight for the movie. And I wish I'd skipped the movie too, because it's a real stinker.
Most teenagers don't really enjoy having to pack up and move somewhere new. But sometimes, it's just one of those things that will happen no matter how much you fight it. And as the movie begins, it's happening to Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), whose mother is sending her from Phoenix to the small Washington town of Forks to live with her father (Billy Blanks). Her attempts to settle into her new life go smoothly, thanks to a group of classmates who befriend her as soon as she walks through the door of her new high school.
But it is the mysterious Cullen siblings that pique Bella's interest. Of all the Cullens, she is most drawn to Edward (Robert Pattinson) in particular. And despite his initial warnings that she should stay far away from him, the two begin bonding after he saves her from being hit by a car. But by the time they realize they've fallen in love with one another, Bella has put together a series of clues and deduced that Edward and his family are vampires. So it's good for her that the Cullens are the type of vampires that prefer animal blood over the human variety. But not every vampire has adapted that kind of diet, as three evil bloodsuckers have caught Bella's scent and want her as their next meal.
I wrote in the opening paragraphs that I haven't read any of the Twilight books. And if the movie is any representation of what Stephenie Meyer wrote, I don't think I'll ever read them. Why? Because the Twilight movie is absolutely dreadful from start to finish. The acting is terrible, the writing is laughable, and the direction is uninspiring. Every second of the movie is tedious to watch, and it took every bit of strength I had to keep myself from stopping the movie and abandoning this review. I'd rather watch sit and watch paint dry instead of watching the Twilight movie. I'd have rather had a conversation with Uwe Boll while he argued that his movies are timeless classics that rival Casablanca and Citizen Kane in terms of quality. I don't care if Twilight was made for teenage girls who love the books; that doesn't mean the movie had to suck so badly.
At the helm is Catherine Hardwicke, whose past résumé includes Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown, and The Nativity Story. Of her prior movies, I've only seen Thirteen, which I thought was actually rather well made. Twilight, on the other hand, is not so lucky. Hardwicke's inconsistent pacing makes it hard for the movie to find any sort of groove, and the whole thing is edited like a series of really bad music videos.
It doesn't help anything that Hardwicke seems to have decided that she wanted Twilight to have as little substance as possible. It's about a taboo love affair between a human and a vampire that the super-fans would have you believe is the strongest love to have ever been loved in the history of love, yet Hardwicke films it in such a way that there is no passion at all. She has cinematographer Elliot Davis shoot everything through an unappealingly gloomy grey filter, and constructs her scenes in such a way that they seem to have no life whatsoever. The production design looks like it's better suited for a teen-oriented drama on The CW, and the special effects are poor. (Regarding the special effects, Edward doesn't look "sparkly," as much as he does blurry. Was it so hard to just paint the guy head to toe in body glitter?) All in all, Hardwicke's direction is depressing to look at, irritating to follow, and just plain bad.
It doesn't help anything that she's working from such a bad script. It was written by Melissa Rosenberg, who had only written one feature film — the 2006 dance movie Step Up — prior to adapting Twilight. So basically she's written one lame movie, and followed it up by writing another. There are so many problems with Twilight's script that I'd be here all day if I wanted to really get into all of them. So let's hit a few of the big ones, shall we?
First off, the dialogue is total crap. The scene where Edward reveals that sunlight causes his skin to sparkle (instead of killing him, like it does in every other vampire story) is one of the worst offenders. The standout line of dialogue is, "This skin... this is the skin of a killer, Bella!" It's also the skin of a terrible actor forced to spout off dialogue that would get you laughed at if you said it earnestly. It's embarrassing to listen to, and I'm sure it was embarrassing for the actors to deliver.
And then there's the fact that there seems to be no plot at all. The whole movie basically seems to be, "Bella is a wallflower who likes to mope around and do nothing. Edward's a creepy, off-putting weirdo. She spends what seems like forever trying to figure out that he's really a vampire. They fall in love with each other despite the fact that she should be afraid of him and that he should be drinking her blood. There's a softball game in the woods. Some vampires fight. Bella and Edward go to the prom. The end." That's pretty much it for the whole movie. None of it is really all that interesting, but we're stuck with it.
There are characters that are introduced and promptly forgotten, as if they were just there so people would recognize them in the sequels. For example, the character of Jacob Black, as played by Taylor Lautner, shows up early in the movie. The love triangle between Jacob, Bella, and Edward is supposed to be a rather important part of the Twilight mythology, but all he gets are a handful of minor, practically inconsequential scenes before he's whisked away to Sequel City. Granted, I've been told that Jacob doesn't really become a major player in the books until the second one, but if the character isn't going to be put to any real use, why even include him? Was it just to satisfy the members of "Team Jacob" in the audience?
But we can't forget the characters. The stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid characters. The characters in this movie are some of the most pathetic, one-dimensional wastes of space I have ever seen committed to film. And I actually cannot get over the fact that the supposed hero of the story is basically two steps away from sticking Bella in a pit in his basement and telling her to rub the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose. Edward rambles on and on with his pretentious "what if I'm the bad guy?" nonsense, acting like Bella's presence makes him physically ill. And then at a certain point, he decides he's going to start stalking her. And I don't mean just following her around, watching her from a distance. I mean full-blown, super-uncomfortable, "make a person fear for their own life" stalking. Girls, let me give you a little bit of advice. If a weirdo that you've just met says that he "feels very possessive of you," then breaks into your house uninvited in the middle of the night and stares at you for hours while you sleep, that isn't romance. It's creepy and wrong and I'm pretty sure that breaking and entering is a crime in all fifty states.
And I honestly cannot judge Stephenie Meyer's writing due to my noted unfamiliarity with her books. But judging by the movie, Meyer has to be out of her friggin' mind. She's undoubtedly laughing her way to the bank as I type this, but how can someone possibly come up with such poorly done drivel and expect it to be taken seriously by anyone who can see through all the nonsense? Edward is a borderline psychopath who any sane female would have ran away from the moment he opened his mouth, Bella is quite frankly all air between the ears, and none of the other characters seem to have any sort of point. Even the villains are lacking a real purpose. I simply do not understand how this can be so popular. Maybe I'm not supposed to, I don't know.
Probably the worst part of this whole thing, though, is the acting. Holy crap, does the acting suck. I'll just come right out and say that with the exception of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, nobody in the movie is worth talking about. They're complete non-factors, essentially background noise that you never pay any attention to. And really, we're not supposed to pay attention to the other actors, because the whole thing is all about setting up the stupid romance between the two main characters.
So what's so bad about the stars, hmm? The answer is just about everything. They're dull and lifeless, as if the director was happy to stick cardboard cutouts of the actors in front of the camera and run with it. Considering how much time is spent to having them stare at one another, that joke I made about cardboard cutouts probably isn't too far from the truth. Stewart is just boring to watch, never playing Bella as anything other than a blank-faced, emotionless twit whose sole hobby is sitting around moping all day. On the other hand, watching Pattinson isn't as much of a drag as it is with Stewart, so he has that going him. But his performance is so stiff and makes Edward so uncomfortable to watch that it makes me wonder why Bella would ever fall in love with a clown like him.
Before you "Twi-hards" start leaving me angry comments, yes, I understand that this movie was not made for me. It was made for the people who have read all the books from cover to cover a million times, treasuring each word on each page as if they were precious jewels. It was made for the people who are still patiently awaiting the publication of a fifth book in the series. It was made for the people who put on their homemade "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob" T-shirts and stood in line for hours to see the advance midnight screening of the movie, then started camping out for New Moon tickets as soon as they got back out to the theater lobby. In short, it was made specifically to pander to the shrieking, swooning teenage girls who eat, sleep, breathe, and bleed Twilight.
But as I said before, the fact that the primary fanbase is made up of people who won't care one way or the other is no excuse to make such a shoddy excuse for a movie. I'm sure a ton of boyfriends got dragged to see this, so why not make something would appeal to them too? I mean, take a look at J.J. Abrams's reboot of Star Trek from this past summer. It was practically a love letter to fans of the show, but it done so well that it managed to appeal to non-fans as well. Twilight doesn't have that going for it, which makes me even more depressed because I can't even say I was forced to watch it. I saw it of my own free will. If I'd been roped into watching it by a loved one, at least I would have had an excuse.
As a movie, Twilight is so shallow that you'll crack your skull open if you dive in headfirst. While teenage girls will be enthralled with all the cheesy melodrama and swooning every time Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner appears, it's practically unendurable for those who have yet to succumb to the madness that has enveloped the movie's target audience. I simply cannot imagine anyone who isn't already a fan of the books enjoying this movie. I certainly didn't. I wonder if it's too late for Blade, Buffy Summers, or even the Frog brothers from The Lost Boys to show up and slay these lame vampires for good.
Final Rating: *½
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