Cliche teenage romance hidden behind vampire story
Written: Feb 14 '09 (Updated Mar 30 '09)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Good-looking and well-chosen actors
Cons: predictable plot, terrible script, screams cliche
The Bottom Line: Behind of the vampire front lies an unimaginative love story that uses every cliche in the book. I'm not impressed.
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| wrestler's Full Review: Twilight |
There are only a few things that save Twilight from being completely brutal. At its best, the movie was only downright predictable. At its worst, it was infuriating. A smooth-looking, well-made film, Twilight is the adaptation of the first tome of the series by Stephanie Meyer brought to the big screen. Biggest library phenomenon since Harry Potter that I can think of. I won't even get into which one deserves the spotlight most, partially because it's not even a contest.
One thing is clear when you watch Twilight. Those who watched Fox late at night in the late 90's- early 2Ks will note that Meyer has studied her DVDs of the defunct series Angel very carefully. Let's make a list of the elements she borrows from Angel: the hunky vampire who falls madly in love with a cute girl but can't go all the way with her because he might not resist the temptation to bite; the fact that he drinks animals' blood to spare humans, the fact that he's trying to atone for his past sins. I'll stop there, although based on what my sister, who's read the books religiously, has told me, there are many more things we could add to this list. Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt, the creators of Angel, should sue for plagiarism.
Enough complaining, let's get on with the plot. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is a girl from Phoenix who lives with her mother since her parents separated. Her mother now lives with Phil, a minor league Baseball player who figures to travel a lot. When Bella's mother (Sarah Clarke) decides to travel with Phil to Jacksonville, Bella decides to move in with her dad to finish high school. The catch is her dad lives in tiny Forks, Washington, which has a population of 30,120 people as Bella tells us. Her father (Billy Burke) is the town's chief of police who talks very little and as happy as he says he is about Bella's arrival, seems evermore focused on the job.
Bella starts attending Forks high school, a place so huge it could be the entire town. It also has to top the American most-weirdoes- per-inhabitant ratio. First show up these First Nation people who look much like the animals they claim to descend from, wolves. Then, the vampires show up. There seems to be much bad blood between them. There are also good and bad vampires. Lots of hate between these two crews as well.
In the midst of all this, Bella meets Edward Cullen, who is played by Robert Pattinson. You may recognize Pattinson as Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Pattinson seems to look at Bella not in a way that tells her how much he desires her, but how handsome he is. It's impossible not to guess what happens, but it's the way in which it does that's truly bizarre. Bella is merely intrigued by his beauty, I guess, until he stops a car from crushing her. With one hand. He has now entered her fantasies. When he finally tells her he's a vampire, her desire for him takes her over even more strongly than panic hit George W. Bush when he got lost in his speech notes.
He says he only drinks animals' blood in order to avoid killing humans. But he also says that he's never craved human blood more than hers, which he illustrates by saying that "it's like humans eating tofu. It gives you all the energy you need, but you're never completely satisfied." (Note: If this isn't the worst line you've ever seen, I urge you to share your pick with me in the comments section.) (Note 2: Come to think of it, the tofu line might receive competition from another line of the film, in which Edward compares Bella to "his own personal brand of heroin." Somehow, the romantic aspect of this line eludes me.)
Bella loves Edward so much, she couldn't care less what he is. In fact, she tells him that she'd be willing to become a vampire to spend an eternity with him. He can't bring himself to do it. I admire his restraint. There is a scene in which she lays her head back, neck out for him to drink and he just kisses her, begging for her to settle for a long, happy life with him.
The irony, which I bet was deliberate on the part of Meyer, is that Edward is the vampire, but Bella is the weirder one of the two. The stranger Edward acts, the more she loves him. The female character who, out of two equally attractive and lovable guys, picks the one who'll give her a safer life seems out of fashion these days in movies.
Two things frustrate me above all else about Twilight. We all know that there is no such thing as vampires, so what's Twilight really about? My theory, shared by many people in my entourage, is that it's about abstinence and that vampirism is a metaphor for sexually-transmitted deceases. Bella loves Edward so much, she doesn't care what happens to her. He loves her so much, he is consumed by his concern for her. I guess that's one (rare) instance where the film stays away from the cliché. Usually the guy wants the sexual episode no matter what and the girl is concerned, not the other way around.
The film's attempts to slightly conceal its own identity are useless and shouldn't be there. The bad guys are not threatening and the danger isn't all that dangerous. So why bother? To ensure that boyfriends across the world can find kind of an incentive to letting themselves be dragged into theatres? We all know that the true stakes of this movie are centered around Bella and Edward, about whether their love can work and whether he can resist the temptation to turn her into the vampire equivalent of a post-diet Big Mac.
More importantly, we know what the backbone of this story is. It's not the fight between vampires, or the one between the vampires and the wolves. It's not even about saving Bella's life. It's about two good-looking kids who love each for no other reason that they love each other. What else do you need, after all? Bella, in particular, seems as much in love with the feeling of being in love as she is with Edward. In addition to that, Twilight moves along in a sleep-inducing rhythm, as if it wants to soften us up for the upcoming romantic bits.
This movie, just like the book it's based on, wasn't made for me. I'm not stupid enough to consider that I might have been part of the target audience. Twilight looks good and the actors fit what it wants to accomplish perfectly. If there were no vampires in this movie, it would merely be a teenage romance. It's not as if Stephanie Meyer reinvented the wheel here, and this movie sure doesn't. It's predictable, has one cliché line after another that you'll be saying before they come. However, as much as I hated it, I know that 16-year-old girls will cherish every moment of it.
Recommended:
No
Movie Mood: Girl Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Plot
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Epinions.com ID:
wrestler
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Member: Alexandre Turp
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Reviews written: 161
Trusted by: 18 members
About Me:
Evolution is all that matters.
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