Twilight

First of all I'd like to say that not many movies ever accomplish the difficult task of doing their books justice, but this movie basically made the books look ridiculously lame and cheesy. Anyone who watched the movie first hoping for some insight to the books will NOT want to read the books afterwards because the love story seems so unrealistic..while the reason the books are so popular is because they SEEM like the love between Edward and Bella could actually happen in real life! Until the baseball scene, there was really no action, and the movie just kind of dragged along. Once the "bad" vampires came into play, things finally started to get interesting. I think they should've included more action like this throughout the entire movie to keep viewers attention.

I have read the books, and the first thing I noticed was that the story wasn't about a plot line at all. It's about the characters and what's going on with them. Stephenie Meyer focuses on interaction, not on dialog, plot, or setting, which is fine. But it makes for a bad movie.

Surprisingly, Twilight wasn't that bad of a film. I expected it to be much worse. As I said, there's very little plot or dialog in the book, so it's hard to make a convincing film. They had to over act looks to try and communicate without many words. I could probably count on one hand the lines in the movie.

Other than the over acting, it wasn't bad. There were some very good moments and some very "eh" moments. But overall I would recommend it to Twilight fans. I probably won't ever want to see it again, but it's okay at midnight with some school friends who like it or something.

There is no point in pretending it – I'm a man in his thirties and I'm not target audience for this film. So the fact that I rented it is just a "bonus" few pounds in the pockets of the makers since they clearly weren't aiming this film at me. Who they were aiming it at appears to have been the army of teenage girls who have been reading the Twilight books religiously – again. I'd never even heard of the books so this is really something off my cultural radar. Regardless I decided to give the film a try without really knowing the plot or what it was meant to be. What I found was the first part in a longer story about a human teenager who moves back to her small town and falls for a boy who turns out to be one of a group of teenage vampires who feed off the blood of animals rather than people.

I have no problems with the teenage aspect of the story but somehow it really failed to engage me as it was not only too superficial but didn't even really do that particularly well. The film plays like it has been written around events without a great deal of depth, complexity or characterisation in it, which is a surprise considering the fertile ground the world of teenage love and acceptance is. Sadly it comes off all too bland and obvious for my tastes and I rarely could bring myself to care about what was going on. The direction is a bit too serious at times but it also lacks passion and the breathlessness that the material suggests it must have once had if it did captivate a teenage audience. Of course I could be just missing the point because perhaps the cast are a big part of it working and this is lost on me.

Certainly the appeal of much of the cast is lost on me totally. Stewart has something about her but cannot translate it into something meaningful here, leaving her character feeling a bit one-dimensional. However compared to Pattinson she looks like one of the finest actresses of her generation because he is about as dull and vapid as he could have been without trying. OK maybe his immortal, unsleeping character has to have something weirdly "dead" about him but this should not be a detrimental part of his performance as it is here. I shan't bother to list those below them because nobody really captured my interest in terms of their characters or performances.

Twilight is not a bad film, it is just a very bland one that lacks passion, heart or excitement. Maybe the target audience will strongly disagree (I'd be shocked if they did not) but having watched this for myself I fail to see what not only the fuss is about – but why anyone would really consider this to be a good film.

That was my interpretation of this weekend that I had to endure working at my movie theater, all these little hormone crazed brace wearing under developed young girls who I think would've just about died with the anticipation of seeing Twilight, I'm not kidding, I personally witnessed a twelve year old say that she wanted to have Robert Pattinson's baby. OK, so how I saw the movie, my sister, ironically my older sister has been just raving about the Twilight series with her friends and told me that I have to read these books, after weeks of bugging me with it, I finally broke down and read them. Actually it's kind of a fun series, it reminded me of the same love that I had for the TV series Buffy the vampire Slayer when I was a young teen. But of course she has to take me to the midnight premiere with 100,000 crazed fans who were knocking each other down and crawling all over each other just to see a movie.

Bella Swan has always been a little bit different, never caring about fitting in with the trendy girls at her Phoenix high school. When her mother remarries and sends Bella to live with her father in the rainy little town of Forks, Washington, she doesn't expect much of anything to change. Then she meets the mysterious and beautiful Edward Cullen. Intelligent and witty, he sees straight into her soul. Soon, Bella and Edward are swept up in a passionate and decidedly unorthodox romance. Edward can run faster than a mountain lion, he can stop a moving car with his bare hands - and he hasn't aged since 1918. Like all vampires, he's immortal. But he doesn't have fangs, and he doesn't drink human blood.

So, my opinion about Twilight the movie... honestly, it's average, it's my junior high romance with a vampire. I hate, beyond hate to say this, I'm a hypocrite for saying this, but because I read the book before I saw the movie, I had this completely different interpretation of what the characters look like and how they say certain lines. Twilight the movie made me laugh more than anything simply because of the actors, Robert and Kristen are not bad actors, but the way they talked, I just couldn't take their "love" seriously. Peter Facinelli who played Carlisle Cullen, Edward's father, was exactly how I pictured and pulled in the best performance of the film. Is it worth the watch, absolutely if you're a fan of the books, otherwise, I would say if you just wanna see this movie, I recommend the matinée price because honestly, I think I may have lost my hearing after this weekend of the none stop screams from crazed teens.

5/10

As a gay 66 year old man, I am clearly not part of the intended audience for this film, however, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The film is filled with handsome teenage males, and many homely ugly- Betty goonily-dressed females, including the lead Bella. The boys either strut around looking pretty, with blank expressions, like runway models, or they act like silly hyper active grade 4 school boys. The boys are so inept in their attempts to impress the girls. Bella rudely dismisses them all with a look that says, "You have got to be kidding. You thought I would have anything to do with you?"

Bella is cranky, rude, not very bright, without interests, hobbies or talents. However, she is new to the school, which gives her some appeal.

Edward, is considered the ultimate dreamboat by all the girls, but he allegedly considers himself too good for any of them. I thought the explanation was that he gay, but it turned it out was because he was a vampire.

All the ugly girls get cute boyfriends in the end, but that fantasy- fulfilment story is very much in the background.

To my great surprise the plot of the first half of the film unfolds with the ponderousness of a Jane Austen novel. I never expected that from a teen movie. There is great push pull between Edward and Bella. Edward is trying to control his urges to kill Bella and drink her blood. Bella blithely ignores what he is telling her. The reticence builds an incredible tension. It is similar to the sort of tension people in an earlier day felt trying to avoid sex before marriage or gay sex.

What makes no sense is why Edward is attracted to Bella but not the other girls. I decided to pretend it had to do with scent or some vampire-only discernible attribute. The real reason has to do with fantasy fulfilment.

Robert Pattinson does a brilliant job of portraying Edward the vampire. His approach is similar to Stephen Moyer playing the courtly vampire Bill Compton in True Blood. He is calm, patient, breathy, intense, old- fashioned. He is handsome, but in an almost non-human sort of way.

At one point he says roughly, "I am the most dangerous predator on the planet. Even my face, by voice and my scent are designed to lure victims." You look at him, and imagine his exotic scent, he is speaking literal truth. It is like an electric shock. Photographs of him are not sufficient to show what I am talking about.

Like the Superman I movie, Edward gradually reveals his powers to Bella. Unlike Lois Lane, Bella is completely unimpressed.

The movie shifts gears to comedy, when Edward takes Bella home to meet the "family".

Then the movie shifts gears again, stealing the special effects from Superman II, where the titans battle.

Bella always chooses the most dangerous possible thing to do at each stage. It obviously helps the plot, but it made me want to smack her for being so stupid.

Bella within almost minutes of meeting Edward decided she wants marry him. Then a week or so later she decides even marriage is not sufficient commitment. The want him to commit for eternity of life as a vampire. The belief that there was only one true love for me caused me untold misery. I might even go so far as to say it ruined my life. I hate seeing that poison being sold to unsuspecting young girls.