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Twilight
USA 2008
produced by
Wyck Godfrey, Greg Mooradian, Mark Morgan, Marty Bowen (executive), Michele Imperato (executive), Guy Oseary (executive), Karen Rosenfelt (executive) for Summit Entertainment, Temple Hill
directed by Catherine Hardwicke
starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Gil Birmingham, Taylor Lautner, Cam Gigandet, Rachelle Lefevre, Edi Gathegi, Sarah Clarke, Matt Bushell, Nikki Reed, Kellan Lutz, Ashley Greene, Elizabeth Reaser, Gregory Tyree Boyce, Justin Chon, Michael Welch, Anna Kendrick, Christian Serratos, Jackson Rathbone, José Zúniga, Trish Egan, Ayanna Berkshire, Ned Bellamy, Bryce Flint-Sommerville, Solomon Trimble, Alexander Mendeluk, Hunter Jackson, Gavin Bristol, Sean McGrath, Katie Powers, Catherine Grimme
screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer, music by Carter Burwell, visual effects by ILM, CIS Vancouver, Rez-Illusion, Catalyst Media
Twilight
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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Bella (Kristen Stewart) is the new girl in school in some small town in
the middle of nowhere, Washington, USA. Sche soon gets interested in
Edward (Robert Pattinson), the handsome but pale outcast who sits next to
her in biology class - but the signals coming from him are contradictory,
on one hand he shows a definite interest in her, on the other, he pushes
her away - but then he saves her from being crushed by a car, obviously
using superspeed and superstrength. This makes her suspicious, so she
googles a bit and finds out he's a vampire. Edward is a good guy though, a
sort of vegetarian vampire, which means he never drinks human blood, only
that of animals. But feeling as sexually attracted to her as he is, he
more and more feels the urge to suck her dry, but she trusts him and knows
he will be able to restrain himself. Edward and Bella's relationship goes
better than expected, so one day he invites her to meet his family,
including his foster father, vampire Carlisle (Peter Facinelli), who has
taught him and his vampire siblings not to drink human blood - but
disaster strikes when during a vampire-baseball game to which Bella was
invited, they meet other vampires, including James (Cam Giganted),
something of a loose cannon who immediately picks Bella as game for his
next hunt. Edward and family do their best to save Bella from James, but
James is clever and kidnaps her mother (Sarah Clarke), and he promises to
let her go only in exchange for Bella - but when Bella wants to give her
life for her mother, Edward and family attack, engage in fight with James
and ultimately defeat, tear apart and burn him - but not soon enough, it
seems, as Bella has already been bitten by James and starts to turn ...
and the only way to save her is for someone - Edward of course - suck the
vampire poison out of her body, but that of course also means to suck her
blood. Of course, Edward manages to suck Bella's blood without sucking her
dry and killing her because he has learned the importance of restraint,
but it wasn't easy. In the end, Edward and Bella go to the prom
together, because hey, after all this is an American highschool movie ... Taylor
Lautner plays Bella's Native American childhood friend who will feature
more prominently in Twilight's sequel New Moon ...
Is
this the fate of the vampire? After a decade or so of being wasted in ever
sillier action movies, they become the subject of highschool romances? Now
I admit, I'm not a teenaged girl, which is the target audience for Twilight
(and among whom the film did incredibly well), and I know that, but
still, I can't help seeing the many shortcomings of the movie as a vampire
flick: This film has very little to offer in tension and suspense, as it's
on one hand too obvious that Edward will be no threat to Bella right from
the beginning (and there is no scene in the film that even puts that into
question - a wasted chance), on the other hand, the real conflict - Bella
versus James - doesn't kick in until two thirds (!) into the film, and
then it's rather downplayed, with the finale - Edward's family taking on
James - being as anti-climactic as can be ... and after the finale the
film doesn't even end but has the obligatory rpom-scene tacked on. And
whatever doesn't go wrong in the storytelling department is pretty much
ruined by one-dimensional characters. On top of that, the film features an
incredible number of unintentionally goofy scenes (like the vampires
playing baseball or Edward treating Bella to a piggie-back ride) while
totally lacking in irony, and the makeup the poor vampires have to wear
that looks like they have been bathed their faces in flour is among the
most pathetic and ridiculous vampire makeups ever brought to screen. Plus
Robert Pattinson's rendition of his vampire as a sort of undead James Dean
(though he more closely matches Luke Perry's rendition of Dean than the
real deal) is a bit much, though the script has to be blamed for this at
least in part (Kristen Stewart on the other hand gives a pretty decent
performance by the way). All that said, Twilight still isn't the
worst vampire movie ever made, it's only just as bad as the many bland
vampire action films like the Underworld-series
that have been released in recent years ... and for me that's bad enough,
actually.
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