Review #154: Twilight (2008)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Catherine Hardwicke (Director): Thirteen (2003), Lords of Dogtown (2005), The Nativity Story (2005)

Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan): Panic Room (2002), Cold Creek Manor (2003), Zathura (2005), The Messengers (2007), Jumper (2008), New Moon (2009)

Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen): Harry Potter 4 (2005) & 5 (2007), New Moon

Billy Burke (Charlie Swan): Along Came a Spider (2001), Ladder 49 (2004), Untraceable (2008), 24 T.V. series

Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen): New Moon

Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale): Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown, New Moon, The O.C. T.V. series

Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale): S.Darko (2009), New Moon

Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen): Prom Night, A Nightmare on Elm St (2010)

Peter Facinelli (Dr. Cullen): Can’t Hardly Wait (1998), Supernova (2000), The Scorpion King (2002), Hollow Man 2 (2006)

Cam Gigandet (James): The Unborn (2009), The O.C. T.V. series

Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black): Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)

Anna Kendrick (Jessica): New Moon

Michael Welch (Mike): Day of the Dead

Christian Serratos (Angela): New Moon, Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide T.V. series

Elizabeth Reaser (Esme Cullen): New Moon, Grey’s Anatomy T.V. series

Gil Birmingham (Billy Black): House 2 (1987), New Moon

Edi Gathegi (Laurent): My Bloody Valentine

Rachelle Lefevre (Victoria): Dead Awake (2001), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), New Moon, Big Wolf on Campus T.V. series

Sarah Clarke (Renee Dwyer): Thirteen, 24 T.V. series

Trailer:


* Twilight is the first movie adaptation of a novel series by author Stephenie Meyer *

Plot:

A junior in high school, Bella Swan, moves from Phoenix to Forks, Washington to live with her dad while her mom and her new “love squeeze” move to Jacksonville to pursue his minor league baseball career. The move is considered temporary for both sides as Bella hopes to rejoin living with her mother back in Arizona.

Bella moves in with her chief of police father, Charlie in Forks, WA. As a present, her father buys her an old beat up pickup truck from one of the local Indian townsmen, and friend of Charlie, Billy Black. Bella loves the truck and drives it to her first day at a new school.

At school Bella becomes the students favorite new “shiny toy” as everyone comes to befriend, love and accept Bella. Personally I’m a little confused about that. On one hand she is hot, so I can see what all the boys around the school are going for.

Then on the other hand, she has a dark and gloomy personality to her. She doesn’t smile or have any fun loving traits…and she’s like that the whole movie, but she continues to be the star of the class.

After Bella learns the scoop on all of her new friends and instantly becomes friends with half the population, she also becomes aware to the school’s odd and privileged click of the town, a family of kids named the Cullen’s.

The Cullen family is made up of several kids that have been adopted by the town’s famous doctor, Mr. Cullen. The family keeps to themselves and doesn’t interact with any of the other kids in school. One of the Cullen kids, Edward, becomes Bella’s secret heart-throb crush. The two are teamed up together as lab partners in Biology which leads to a weird exit from Edward as he bolts out of class without exchanging words with her.

The rest of the movie is a typical “forbidden love” story as we come to realize that Edward is a vampire who’s afraid to get close to Bella. Eventually they hook up and Bella gets accepted by all the other Cullen’s and she starts dating Edward.

After pain and suffering through the love story build up for the first hour and twenty some odd minutes of the film, the movie finally hits an intriguing plot. While out hanging with the Cullen’s (during a family baseball game) a rouge pack of vampires cross paths with Bella and company. I shall call them the Pointy Three since there are three of them and their teeth are pointy. One of the Pointy Three, James, sniffs out that Bella is human and makes it his goal to kill her to spite Edward.

This confrontation is really a false build up in my mind. The Cullen family account for seven dude and dudette vampires (eight if you include Bella) while the Pointy Three is made up of…three pointy teeth vamp’s. The Cullens freak out and rush Bella out of there before James can attack her.

I’m asking myself, “Why?” You have strength in numbers…seven to three and one of the three doesn’t really give a sh*t if she dies anyways. Instead they panic and flee the scene in a hurry. Once back at the Cullen family compound, the big plan is to…divide up and go separate ways. One group tries to lead a false trail away from Bella while the second group escorts her out of town.

Really? Divide up and go separate ways. They obviously had one thing going for them, pure numbers, and now let’s even the odds and go into smaller groups to make it fair. A bunch of brilliant f*ckin’ idiots!

Basically this falsely perceived danger of James killing Bella is the highlight of the film (and the most action packed). The only problem is that it lasts about fifteen minutes before returning to another fifteen minutes of “love story” crap.

Villain:

The true villain of Twilight is the author of all the books, Stephenie Meyer and director of the movie, Cathrine Hardwicke. She manipulates the coolness of the vampire mystique and fools all horror fans by using it as a backdrop to a f*ckin’ love story. For all those expecting some cool vampire action…cover your eyes…it ain’t happening.

While I’m still in the “hate mode”…let’s talk about the vampires in the film. Hmmm…where should I begin? Okay, I know. The main city (Forks) is home to the vampire clan (The Cullen’s) and their “children” attend the local high school.

Vampires in school? How does that work? Don’t vampires sleep during the day? You know to avoid the whole “sun light” thing, because we all know sunlight + vampires = burn in flames. Well…not in this version, Stephenie Meyer, depicts her vampires as something a little different.

They live in the town of Forks, WA because it’s mostly overcast, and the sun doesn’t shine a whole lot. Well, I can kind of “buy that”. I’m not 100% sold on that idea, but it’s a stretch. But wait…there’s more! In Twilight vampires can go out in the sunlight, but it the sun poses a problem for them. Burn into flames! No. Sunlight gives them a really, really bad sunburn! Nope. It shows a demon side to them! 0 for 3. What’s the problem then?

The sunlight makes them shine like diamonds.

Huh?

You heard me. The sunlight makes them shine like diamonds.

WTF!!!??

Now I’ve seen a lot of different takes on the legend of the vampire, but I’ve never come across anything close to them glowing like diamonds when exposed in the sunlight. They’re vampires not Glow Worms! Was Meyer smokin’ some dope while listening to Pink Floyd’s ♫ Shine on you crazy diamond ♫ and then had an epiphany about vampires looking that way? Agh! On the sunny days in Forks the vampires just take a “sick day” to avoid the whole shiny thing.

The second all this was explained in the film, I was just pissed. More than pissed…flabbergasted. This trait wasn’t the only thing about vampires that I was banging my head against the wall either. The vampires had a super strength and speed.

Okay, now I’ve seen some cases of a “stronger” than human version of a vampire, but this was beyond that. The vamp’s had super duper strength like Superman, and were fast like in “The Flash” fast. Now this is getting pretty damn hokey.

Okay I’m going to stop on the vampire trait thing here because it’s upsetting me. It has already taken me a week to digest this movie, and now I’m already getting riled back up. Back to the villains…outside of the author, the bad guys in the film is the Pointy Three which is made up of James, Laurent and Victoria.

James is basically a vampire who likes to kill. James and Edward share a brief “who’s cock is bigger than mine” pissing contest moment at the baseball game and James is destined to kill Bella to piss off Edward.

Cast:

Kristen Stewart (Pictured Left) plays the lead role of Bella in Twilight. For the love of God, Kristen…smile. Every movie I’ve seen her in she plays this depressed looking teenager. I found myself during the movie asking the question, “How can she be that popular in school if she was just some pathetic depressed looking chick?” Usually those “types” are the school’s outcasts…the ones that don’t fit in.

Not Twilight. Nooo. She’s the most popular chick in school. All the other kids seemed to flock to her like she was some type of Goddess or something. During all her scenes with her school friends Bella seemed so disinterested when around them. She was always staring out in the open ignoring everything they did or said. If that was my friend, they would drive me nuts. “Hello. Anyone in there?” But somehow everyone seemed to love her.

Stewart’s depressing character was the same way in the movie, The Messengers. Is this how Stewart acts? Is that her trademark or signature acting ability? Does she have some sort of depressed Goth appeal to her? I don’t know, but it seems that way. I’ve seen pictures of her smokin’ the wacky weed on-line, so I know she likes to have a little fun. Maybe she should show a little bit more life on screen more often.

The second main character in the movie is Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson (Pictured Left). Edward was the part of the school’s mysterious family who kept to themselves, yet he was the heart-throb of all the teenage girls in the flick.

He was the “unattainable”…tall, dark and handsome guy in school with those dreamy eyes. Edward was torn between his dark secret and the love of his life. Please. Shoot me. I can’t gag enough to clear the dislike of this character from my throat. It was like seeing Titanic’s Leonardo DiCaprio all over again.

SFX/Gore:

The special effects in Twilight were pretty good for all it’s worth. Even on the ridiculous “super enhanced” powers that the vampires had. I know the blazing fast running in the woods was dumb and hilarious to see, but it wasn’t the special effects fault…just dumb writing.

Twilight didn’t have any cool vampire transformation sequences in it. The vampires were pretty plain in their appearance with the occasional sharp pointy teeth. It was really no big deal. I was hoping for a little more from the vampire look than some kids from all those WB/CW shows walking around with pointy teeth every once and a while.

TNA:

Twilight features a huge cast of hot looking young adults to please the men and women audiences. The women audience knows what they get for eye candy, so I’m not venturing down that road. The male audience is treated to the pot smokin’, hot lookin’, depressed and droopy eyed Kristen Stewart (Pictured Below).

Outside of Stewart there were many young teenie boppers to look at for eye candy. There was also a hotness surrounding the Cullen family. Actresses Ashley Greene (Pictured Below), Nikki Reed and Elizabeth Reaser make up the core of the Cullen family. They’re pretty hot themselves.

There wasn’t much for the mature audiences to take in. The closest thing to “Second base” pops up during the family baseball game. Other than that, it’s a PG-13 love story.

On a side note, the girl that plays the chick vampire of the Pointy Three (Rachelle Lefevre...pictured right) also starred in a T.V. show called “Big Wolf on Campus” back in the day. Anyone else remember that show? It was pretty cheesy, but it was…Fun-Times!

T.Gun’s Take:

Romeo & Juliet
+
Titanic
+
Harry Potter
+
Underworld (this part will make more sense in the future sequels)
=
Twilight

Yeah, it’s that simple of a formula. Twilight (and its future sequels) is targeted for the young female book reading audience. It’s no surprise that they were pretty much the only ones who flocked to the theaters to see the movie…with the occasional “dragging the boyfriend along”.

I could probably go on and on about how much I hated this movie…or even the dumb things about it, but I have a few more sequels to wretch out my feelings. Here’s a rundown of my other gripes:

1. Sucking out the vampire virus blood at the end. Pretty weak.
2. The trap that James set up for Bella. Now who didn’t see that coming?
3. The family baseball game. Now that was just stupid. It makes Bud Selig’s “Steroid Era” look tame.
4. Edward’s attraction to Bella (outside of physical)…I can’t read your thoughts. WTF?!
5. Edward stopping the car. Super Edward to the rescue!

If you’re a dude…then skip this whole experience. There is hardly anything cool about these vampires. If you’re a female, then you will probably dig this a little bit.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on November 21, 2008 and made $191.4 million at the Box Office ($69.6 million opening weekend)
-Largest $ gross debut for a female director
-5,000 people auditioned for the role of Edward
-Edward's car is a Volvo C30
-Stewart celebrated her 18th birthday on the set
-An apple appears on the book cover, in Scandinavian mythology an apple is symbolic for eternal youth and beauty
-There are 4 books in the Twilight series (Oh crap, three more sequels)