Twilight

This movie deserves an 8 purely for the soundtrack - one of the best movie sound tracks EVER (in my opinion) and beautiful scenery and cinematography. sure, the acting isn't great, nor is the script writing, however this movie is an enjoyable watch and a romance classic

NOTE: This review is the fair and unbiased opinion of someone with extremely little knowledge of the Twilight series. I watched the movie with a few die hard fans who I talked to after the movie, and I will work some of their thoughts into the review.

Another much loved book series has been brought to life in the form of Twilight, which despite having nothing in common with the Harry Potter series, will undoubtedly draw comparisons because of the furor and craze surrounding it. The main difference between the two, however, is that the Harry Potter films are generally good and solid films. Twilight, despite having done a couple things right, is not.

As a story, I will admit, Twilight is very catchy and interesting. Now I see what all the hype is about. If I was a young girl, I would go nuts over this stuff too. It's not just a vampire and a human falling in love with each other, but because of the two leads, it's one of the best on screen romances of the decade. This, however, is severely hurt by the fact that Twilight boasts easily some of the worst writing and editing I've ever seen. Let's not forget about the horrid VFX and pasty makeup, either. It's one of the cheesiest films of the year, and can definitely be put in the category of "so bad it's ALMOST good". Yes, I just invented that category.

The 'allure' of the film appears to be the character played by Robert Pattinson, who ironically was previously known for his role in the Harry Potter series. Pattinson succeeded there and he more than succeeds again, as he more than fit the bill for what he needed to do with the character. Most actors would believe the only requirement of the character is to be good looking, but Pattinson takes it a step further and makes Edward Cullen very likable, trustworthy, and in the end, a good hero for the audience. Kristen Stewart is sort of the queen of not showing facial expressions, so she's perfect for the role of the awkward teen Bella Swann. However, there were sometimes where her lack of emotion bothered me.

Our supporting players...Well, none of them are noteworthy like Pattinson is. The villain of the film is lame, cheesy, and played by an actor I can't take seriously. Nikki Reed is probably the best as Rosalie, Edward's 'sister', and the antagonistic vibe felt from her adds a different side to the movie.

Okay, I don't really know what possessed the writer of this screenplay to make it so horrible (was it the source material?), because the dialog is just so bad that I laughed at serious moments. There's a lot of intentional humor, mostly in the beginning when Bella and Edward feel like awkward teens in love. I guess the movie moved along okay, because I wasn't bored at all. I was either laughing at how stupid the dialog was, laughing at some of the mildly funny jokes, or getting pulled in by the electric chemistry between Stewart and Pattinson.

That, folks, is the reason most people will be able to sit through this movie. The chemistry between the two leads, romantically and sexually, is amazing. In this respect, Pattinson and Stewart are perfectly cast and it makes me wonder if they could end up together in real life some day. I was very surprised by how much I liked seeing their one on one scenes, as cheesy and bad as the VFX and editing are.

As far as these visual effects go, I've seen a few vampire movies in my day. I'm going to assume director Catherine Hardwicke has seen a few. Well, she needs to watch a few more. Her fight scenes are horribly choreographed, terribly shot, and lack the intensity required to successfully rouse her audience. I could almost notice the wires the actors flew across on. I noticed a ton of errors with the editing as well, such as basic stuff like mouths moving and no words coming out, and words coming out when no mouths were moving. The fight scene at the end has wicked bad editing too, as the sound mixing also suffers as well.

All in all, with Twilight, as bad a movie as it may be, I couldn't help but stay interested in it because of the electric chemistry between the leads. That alone kept me in the seat the whole time. It is technically one of the worst films of the year, but the entertainment factor in the above respect keeps it out of the company of movies like Disaster Movie and College. I was actually lucky to see it with some of the fans of the book, and all of them (5) described the movie as a 'disappointment' and that the film went 'half way' with some subplots, either starting and dropping them, or randomly starting them halfway through an individual subplot. They were not happy at all with this movie, but agreed on one thing: Robert Pattinson was the perfect Edward Cullen. I'll agree with them on all those points and say that Twilight is exactly what I thought it would be: so bad it's ALMOST good.

There's an atmosphere to Twilight and that much you simply cannot deny. I can't help but be engrossed by the way that this movie captures the beauty, dreariness and nature of the Pacific Northwest. A memorable score and soundtrack heighten Catherine Hardwicke's broody, yet still enchanting tone. Elliot Davis' cinematography under her direction replicates the indie flair prominent in her other features, this is what separates it apart from the commercially realised sequels that followed. It's a hot and cold, gothic romance with just enough high stakes to enchant you until the very end. If it's raining, you can best believe that I'm slipping into something comfortable and putting Twilight on.

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.

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.