CriticSociety- film reviews

Review

Twilight

Director

Catherine Hardwicke

Year

2008

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Monday, December 01, 2008

Aside from the fact that the supernatural romance subject attracted me, I was still interested in the Twilight movie despite having hated the novel it was based on because I knew Bella would be played by Kristen Stewart and I had been irrevocably and illegally in love with her since her attempt to get did by the protagonist of Into the Wild (2007) inside a trailer. Here again we get to see her in the same pose, in her panties, on her bed, being ultimately rejected by a would-be lover. I hope we get to see her finally achieving third base eventually.

But it would be really bad of me to keep talking trash about the main character of a film that owes its success to teenage girls who dream of a guy like Edward Cullen, the male lead, falling in love with them for no apparent reason and despite being the coolest and most gorgeous guy in High School. The reason, we get to know, and let’s not encourage you to get into spoiler territory if you still don’t know what this is about, is that he lusts for her blood because he’s an undead. He’s not quite evil though, despite his vampire nature, so he struggles to stay away from her, but it’s impossible, and eventually they face a great peril: being in love with each other despite the fact that he wants to eat her up and not the fun way.

Stephenie Meyer’s book was pretty bad but I could see where its success lied: narrated by Bella, it delved into her psyche, making us understand how crazily in love she was with this dark knight and how she faced the weirdest situation she could ever imagine. It’s pretty fun reading her, in truth, ‘cause she’s rather quirky and her insights have a touch of black humor that I could get something from, which is lost in the movie. However, the book was so into this girl idolizing Edward that it forgot to give any attention to the eventual crisis that included some action, which is a terrible mistake that totally ruined the experience for me and which is thankfully fixed in the movie, though not that much, but at least to some extent.

The guy is played by Robert Pattinson who played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). I thought it was an unusual choice but he does all right, too bad his character is scripted as an eternal teenager instead of a wise old man who has some fun thanks to his eternal youth, as should be. Also, both he and Bella are constantly murky and rarely have any fun, which doesn’t ring true.

As for the rest of the cast, Billy Burke is good as Bella’s father and Taylor Lautner is intriguing as Jacob. The rest are OK, except one who is so badly miscast I must mention her: Nikki Reed in the role of “the most beautiful woman in the world”, Rosalie. Reed worked with director Hardwicke as co-writer and star in the fantastic Thirteen (2003) but she’s got nothing to do in the role of Rosalie, period.

And one last thing: I would rather keep hearing almost identical but magnificent tunes film after film of the Coen brothers’ than have Carter Burwell do his worst work to date in a film like this. Not worthy of him.

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