Review: Twilight

2008/PG-13/Romance

And so it would appear that my blog is transitioning into simply a movie review site. I believe I've found the reason for this: My political ire is so far off the charts that I find it difficult to compose a coherent sentence about it. My attention to sports has been hampered by a lack of time and cable. And I've been working on five different literary projects so when I have the time and the yearning to write, they are taking first priority. However, this evening I figured I'd take a few moments and earn a few new enemies with a review of the box office success Twilight.

Most of the reviewers who are passing on this movie are comparing it to the book Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. You won't find that prejudice here; I've not read the book. I'll be passing for entirely different reasons.

For those not in the know, Twilight chronicles the journey of 17 year old Bella as she moves from Phoenix Arizona to a small town in Washington state to live with her father. She catches the eye of the dashingly good-looking recluse Edward Cullen who just happens to be a vampire. Can the young couple overcome the obvious challenges in front of them? She's alive, he's undead. She's 17 he's about 175. She craves ice cream, he craves drawing every last drop of her blood from her body.

The plot of this movie doesn't make any sense. Why would Bella fall for Edward? Sure he's good looking but he wants to kill her. Is she so shallow that the mere fact that no one else could land him is enough for her? Is she so superficial that she can base her "unconditional, irrevocable love" on his attractiveness? Is she so shortsighted that she believes the excitement of being with a vampire is a sufficient foundation for love? There was one fantastic line in this movie. Edward says, "So the lion has fallen in love with the lamb." and Bella responds, "What a stupid lamb." Exactly.

The flip side of this question is also valid: Why would Edward fall for Bella? I understand that the scent of her blood is like a drug to him. I've never fallen for my extra large pepperoni pizza. Now, even though Edward is over 150 years old, it's understandable that, as a guy, he might confuse his desire for Bella for love. That doesn't alter the fact that combining his desire to devour her with his dedication not to harm her makes them spending 24/7 together absolutely illogical, if not cruel. And Bella's insistence that they not be apart is nothing more than her complete and utter selfishness. If she doesn't understand how hard it is for Edward than she's too self centered to listen to him. If she does understand then she's too selfish to care.

A plot as shaky as this puts a lot of pressure on the actors to present performances powerful enough for the audience to accept what we are being told. Based on the questions this movie has garnered, the actors weren't up to the task. Kristen Stewart was acceptable as Bella, but wasn't able to justify her love for Edward.

Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen appeared to be channeling the annoying awkwardness of Hayden Christensen when he portrayed Anakin Skywalker. This was almost humorously confirmed when, just as Anakin declares to Padme that he killed all of them, "and not just the men, but the women and children too" and Padme didn't care, Edward confesses to Bella "I've killed people before." To which she responds "Doesn't matter."

Speaking of channeling it was pretty clear that James, played by Cam Gigandet, was doing everything but holding a seance in an attempt to embody Brad Pitt.

One performance stands out, however, as head and shoulders above the rest. Billy Burke shines as the awkward single-father-of-a-teenaged-daughter-whom-I-haven't-seen-in-years-small-town-chief-of-police. Even though the character is stereotypically written, Burke somehow brings depth and believability to this dime-a-dozen role.

The pacing of this movie exposed the inexperience of the director Catherine Hardwicke. The plot took far too long to develop. The movie was nearly half over and Bella was just realizing that Edward was a vampire. Almost three quarters of the way in the movie finally begins to get some traction as Edward and the Cullen clan attempt to protect Bella from James, the tracker. That lasts all of eight minutes and then the movie gets back in it's own way with it's slow paced romance. I'm not sure what this movie was marketed as, but it wasn't as a romance. When I finally succumbed to the fact that I was watching a romance I felt gypped. I had expected more.

One moment of the movie absolutely made my blood boil. Bella was on the phone with Nina Myers, I mean her mother taking about Edward. Bella is trying to get off the phone and the last thing her mother feels the need to ask is, "Are you being safe?" Now, hopefully, this comment soared over the heads of the the 10-13 year old girls who are the major demographic pumping money into this franchise. However, the sentiment is still there: "Are you being safe?" EI: "Are you using protection?" Not "Are you behaving yourself?" "Are you abstaining?" or even "Are you making good choices?" What message is this sending to those viewers who aren't too young to understand? Bella hasn't been there for three months and her mother knows that she hasn't been talking about a boy since she got there. Yet it's the expectation of Bella's mother that Bella is having sex? Apparently, this is a given. Nothing her mother says will prevent it so she might as well at least make sure she's "being safe." It's this type of subtly that drive me crazy.

Ok, I do have some nice things to say about this movie. While this is not a "Christian" movie, it has two fairly blatant Christian themes: Edward struggles against his desire for human blood in the same way that we struggle against our desire to sin. Because we are human, our desire to sin is irrevocable just as Edward's desire for blood is because he's a vampire. Yet he actively fights against that urge and when he finds himself in a situation where the temptation is too great, he flees. How much more successful would we be at avoiding sin if we had the same flight instinct?

The first lines of the movie (which are repeated later on) are "I'd never given much thought to how I would die... But dying in the place of someone I love seems like a good way to go." This is exactly what Christ did for us. He died in the place of someone he loves, many someone's in fact. Someones that include me... and you.

My final thoughts on this movie are that even though the story was lacking and the acting was merely acceptable, the visual effects were above average and the majority of the themes in the film were positive.

2.5 out of 5 stars.