Ah,To Be Young, BloodThirsty and In Love: “Twilight” Review

December 1, 2008 by Svetlana  Send to a Friend

Simply put, this was the best AND the worst movie I’ve seen all year.
As you probably know by now “Twilight” mania has gripped the nation. Joel McHale (as always) put it best:

This resulted in me being afraid to see this movie the opening weekend (being all grown-up, and into good seats in movie theaters and in general a creature of comfort) but I did go on Black Friday, in Georgetown with 5 other girls, all arranged in a line, all armed with popcorn and scarves to hide our non-virginal eyes with during the awkward moments.
Which, let it be said, there was A LOT OF. In fact, i’d venture, this movie IS one giant awkward moment. Just like adolescence.

The story, should you care about it, involves Bella (played woodenly by Kristen Stewart who previously was seen as Jodie Foster’s son in “Panic Room” and Meg Ryan’s daughter in “In the Land of Women”. Evan Rachel Wood would have been SO MUCH BETTER.) moves to small town Washington to live with her cop Dad, while her (obviously crazy but loving) Mom frolics around the US with her new minor-league baseball husband. Once there, she makes some friends, and develops a crush on Edward (played by someone who, I am sure, has an actual name but I like to refer to him as Cedric Diggory, which is the character he played in the best Harry Potter movie yet “HP & The Goblet of fire”, you know, he was the cute one Voldermort killed in the maze) who is the adopted son of the local Dr. Carlyle (played by Mr. Jenni Garth, Peter Facinelli himself) and his wife Esme.
Now, Carlyle and Esme have 5 foster kids, all of whom, Edward aside, wear a lot of white face powder, and date each other and look kind of like extras from “Flowers in the Attic”. OF COURSE they are vampires.
Permanently the 5th wheel in this house orgy, Edward needs love and he finds it in Bella, with her carefully curled hair and pasty complexion and her blood that makes him go wild. (there is A LOT of nostril flaring. A LOT).
And because Edward is (super) hot, and Bella is 16, she loves him back.
Even after she finds out about him being a vampire (which frankly, to me seemed kind of like a bonus, because he gets to be all glistening in the sun and can hop you onto his back and take you places in seconds, and does not need to eat or sleep but just spend 24 hours blindly adoring you, I mean, isn’t this every 16 year old’s dream?)

They are so much in love, even his family (they are good, vegetarian vampires, they ONLY eat animal blood) accepts her and the family interaction parts are, in my opinion, the best in the movie, funny and non-affected and…but obviously, they cannot last long.
Cue this:

3 evil vampires show up in town, thirsty for man blood and looking like a bunch of extras from an Army of Lovers video:

and of course they want Bella. Which means we get some hunt and chase scenes, which make not much sense and are actually kind of annoying and by the end of it all we are ALL SET FOR A SEQUEL.
ALL SET.
The acting is dreadful, the humor is forced, the nostril flaring and bewildered looks abundant, the storyline preposterous and the editing questionable. But then, you probably already knew this (frankly, I think there was really no other way but the uber-campy way to make this. I mean, the books are a teen equivalent of Harlequin novels, this was never going to be realistic. Ever.).
The movie will poison the minds of millions of (pre)teen girls, lead them into unreasonable expectations about love and life and result in way too many misleaded black clothing purchases. Because of all of this though, “Twilight” is amazing. I completely and irrevocably loved it (much like all love is in this movie). If you see it, you will understand.
Can’t wait for the sequel and the threequel.

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