Twilight

Beware of the ostensibly spooky title and poster for this movie. Those who don't make it a habit of reading a movie's synopsis prior to paying their hard-earned $10 to go see it will probably be severely disappointed by Twilight, particularly if they go into it expecting a scary/suspenseful vampire story. There is absolutely nothing thrilling or frightening about this film, but I expect a lot of people will be tricked into watching it thinking that that's what they're in for. However, if you're looking for a movie in which nothing much happens other than a pair of teenagers swooning over each other with loads of mist and fog in the background, then you're in luck.

Twilight operates on a string of laughably bad dialogue that could perhaps enter "so-bad-it's-good" territory in some instances, but for the most part, it is just too inane. The scene that comes off worst is the one in the woods when the lovebirds are together, and vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) explains everything about who he is to Bella (Kristen Stewart). One expects moments like these to be hard to believe in almost any film, but Twilight also commits the sin of making it incredibly uninteresting.

I'm not sure if it's meant to be ironic in an odd way, but I can't help pointing out the script's flawed usage of the word "vegetarian". The vampires in Twilight are identified as being vegetarian, but... well, you shouldn't take that literally... nor metaphorically, for that matter. You should just ignore the use of the word "vegetarian," as it is used in an entirely contradictory way, because the vampires here actually DO eat meat... they just eat animal meat, rather than human meat. I suppose that makes me a vegetarian, too, doesn't it? Seriously, they could've come up with a better term for it, rather than using a word that doesn't fit at all in terms of its definition.

Although it runs for over 2 hours, the "suspenseful" part (if we can call it that) of Twilight probably lasts less than half an hour, and it comes when a vampire who is, um, NOT a "vegetarian" (according to this film's definition of the term) smells Bella, and Edward needs to save her from being ravaged by him. But these scenes are incredibly limp, totally lacking in tension, and with a showdown that is entirely unimpressive, with very poor special effects and half-assed, choppy editing. In fact, there's not a single instance in this movie in which we see a vampire kill someone - I suppose there's two instances in which it sort of happens off-camera, but that's it.

Kristen Stewart deserves a lot of credit for navigating the film's bad dialogue and not coming off badly at all in terms of her performance. There were times that I forgot for a few seconds, whenever she was talking, that I was watching a campy, mediocre movie. Twilight is the first film Stewart's been in that I haven't liked, but it's also the biggest movie she's done after the many indies she's been in recently, so I guess this is her way of becoming a bigger star, and you can't blame her for that. Some will remember her as Jodie Foster's assertive, precocious and diabetic daughter in Panic Room. After the very good work she did recently in Into the Wild, Fierce People and In the Land of Women, I have no problem with her starring in a movie that will hopefully be a vehicle towards better roles in other, much better productions. Sadly, the notion of Twilight's mediocrity came right back into my head every time that the film would cut from Stewart to her lead counterpart (it should also be noted that, while Pattinson is a relatively good-looking guy, I have no clue what all the drooling and swooning is all about... teenage girls *sigh*).

You might say "Well, I guess it's impossible for a vampire/ghost story flick to be considered a cinematically good movie, so you should just try to enjoy it on a campy level," and what I would respond to that is that, just last year, we got two films that combined those two elements and did so very well. 30 Days of Night was a chilling vampire story that used its atmospheric setting way more effectively than Twilight ever does, and it's also about a thousand times more suspenseful and scary a film. The Invisible was a surprisingly good (and wildly underrated, I think) ghost story that is actually pretty similar to Twilight in that it is really more of a CW-cult type drama than a horror movie and in that it incorporates a romantic element.

Aside from Stewart's ability to hold her own despite the laughable dialogue, the other positive element that I found in Twilight is, believe it or not, that I see potential here. Considering the fact that the movie did well at the box office, I imagine that a sequel (based, of course, on the next book in the series) will be entertained and possibly green-lighted. The final scenes of Twilight take place at the prom, and they are nicely subdued, and when you couple this with the dilemma that both lead characters (mainly Bella) face as the film comes to a close, not only does it make me want to see the story continue, but it gives me the feeling that there's a lot of room for improvement here (as it has been the case with the Harry Potter films). The final line in the film ("For now") is effective in creating that hook. So, surprising as it sounds after everything I've said, I look forward to a better sequel. This seems like the type of story that can become very interesting once all the prefacing and explaining is out of the way, and it is indeed out of the way now that the first film in the series has been released. All in all, Twilight is a so-so effort with a lot of potential for betterment in future entries.

4/10