Twilight Movie Review Message Board and Comments
Comments
"But here, the most frightening element is how readily accepted Bella is among
her classmates." That part was funny and its true, I don't get why they are
obsessed with a quiet moody Bella either.
The movie did ssuck HOWEVER you fail to mentoin how cool the books are. By the
way "Ms. Stewart" really real messed up the movie with her HORRIBLE acting.
I do agree with the others.YOU may not like it, but there are so many fans out
there that just love it, myself included. So don't go around saying how stupid
it is, or how boring it is, because it only makes you sound like an a**, pardon
my french, and stop trying to use big words to make it sound stupid because it
just makes you seem stupid. And just because you don't like it that doesn't
mean that all adults hate it. My dad came to see it with me in the theater and
he loved it, my sister Natali,who is an adult over twenty, read the books and
she liked them, and there are so many other adults that like it, not just
teenagers, but adults. So get over yourself, stop trying to put yourself "above
it all" because, frankly, you sound like a real pushy know it all a**. So stop
trying to push your thoughts on everyone else, and just because you don't like
it that does not mean everyone else has to hate it too.
Loved the movie and am wondering if the critic who panned it is serious. No,
his has to be a satirical interpretation, dare I say a tongue in cheek, tooth
in neck, review? Nevertheless, time will prove this critic oh so wrong
I had a different take on the movie. A bit harsher, you could say.
This review of my Twilight experience was been planned for a long time, and
isn’t quite as relevant now. The weekend after release night, I and handful of
brave II members (Lord Snow, Elanor, Jeni, and Eccentric Iconoclast) embarked
on a movie going experience that would cost us the following:
* Ten US dollars
* 122 minutes
* Our dignity as humans
* A sizeable portion of our souls
Had I been an enemy combatant, the Geneva Convention would also have been
violated on that night. There was no line when Lord Snow and I arrived at the
theater, so getting our tickets was easy. I had to hide a laugh in a cough when
I asked the girl at the ticket counter for a ticket to Twilight. She probably
wasn’t judging me, but it was an embarrassing situation nonetheless.
I had expected huge lines, so we ended up arriving about an hour early. I felt
slightly ridiculous to be a Twilight hater who showed up earlier than the fans
to get tickets, so we went over to the Borders to look around and link up with
the rest of our group. I was amused to see Twilight and Inheritance placed side
by side—bookstores know their demographics.
When we finally entered the theater it was packed. We sat in the third row from
the front, which is just next to eyestrain aisle. Lord Snow and I weren’t the
only Y chromosomes in the theater, I’m quite sad to report. Along with the
chaperoning fathers, there were also some single guys. I’m going to posit a
correlation between watching Twilight by yourself and being single. I think
even girls who like Twilight know there is something off about a guy who likes
Twilight. Just throwing it out there. Obviously the largest demographic was
middle class teenage females—a corporate marketing agent’s fantasy come true.
The audience was actually fairly quiet, not at all like the screaming masses I
heard of elsewhere. Probably Minnesota Nice kept the crowd more or less sane. I
love Minnesota. There was only mild screaming when Edward first came on screen,
and not a lot of that “take it off, hottie!” nonsense. Granted, most of the
screaming actually came when the Half-Blood Prince trailer aired, and Daniel
Radcliffe in all his robed glory appeared. Make of that what you will.
The hottie, of course, was Robert Pattinson. They couldn’t possibly have been
referring to Kristen Stewart, because the make-up department spent extra time
making her look as unattractive as possible, and the costume department did its
part too. Now, it was my understanding that in a Hollywood movie if you aren’t
sexy you had better be good at acting, and sometimes they even expect both. To
call Kristen Stewart an actress is an insult to the many actresses who can do
facial expression. Stewart looked perpetually bored. Maybe she was trying to
read the book while the movie was being filmed. Occasionally she would use her
facial muscles to tug slightly at the edges of her lips, in what some of us
call “a smile”. This was evidently the cause of much distress, given the
expression of pain in her eyes. It didn’t help, however, that she barely closed
her mouth throughout the entire movie. Presumably she was so dazzled by
Edward’s amazing sparkle, she forgot she had jaw muscles. It’s possible Kristen
was just too embarrassed to be in the movie to really try and act. After all,
she was given some of the worst source material in existence, and the script
writing didn’t drastically improve on the writing.
I’m inclined not to forget Kristen, because her cast mate Robert Pattinson did
so much better on all levels. Especially since his unstated goal was to ruin
the movie. Some choice quotes of his include, “I read the book and was like
‘Well this is really dumb, I’ll never ever… This is so pointless going up for
the role.’” and also “And the more I read the script, the more I hated this
guy, so that’s how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus,
he’s a 108 year-old virgin so he’s obviously got some issues there”. Because I
knew he was trying to destroy the movie from the inside out, I was much more
sympathetic to Pattinson’s struggles with the script. Unlike Stewart, he
actually attempted to inject some life and even some humor into the delivery,
even as he loathed the entire experience. Pattinson was probably given even
more embarrassing lines than Kristen. Some little nuggets of diarrhea include,
“I like watching you sleep”, a line which Kitty mocked much better than I ever
could; and also, “You are exactly my brand of heroin”, said in a nicely
angst-filled voice. The script writers might have drawn inspiration for its
remarkable romance from the Star Wars prequel trilogy, another series renown
for its amazingly well written romance. If the romance in Star Wars can be
summed up as “Padme, I hate sand. You aren’t like sand. So I love you”, then
the romance in Twilight could be summed up as “Bella, I love heroin. You are
like heroin. So I love you”. Stunning, really. Beyond that, the script writings
forgot to mention anything Edward could possibly have seen in Bella. Not even
any redeeming qualities, to make up for her being clingy, whiny, shallow.
When producing the Twilight movie everyone seemed to have forgotten chemistry,
that vital little thing that makes romance tick. It was absolutely nowhere to
be seen in Twilight. Pattinson seemed about as happy to be kissing Stewart as
he would be about kissing a dead possum, and for her part Stewart simply looked
bored. Pattinson was still the more dynamic of the two, and at times it even
seemed like he wasn’t utterly revolted at the concept of Stewart. Seriously
though, they spent a sizeable portion of the movie gazing into each other’s
eyes, and yet, I still didn’t get the impression these were two people who
loved each other and wanted to be together forever. Or even that they were two
people mildly sexually interested in each other and wanted to have a one night
stand. The closest they ever came was a wonderful scene in a meadow right after
Edward has revealed his sparkliness to her, and they gaze soulfully into each
others’ eyes while the camera circles around them. Just like in all those
trashy romance movies.
Part of the problem was that the camera was zoomed SO FREAKING CLOSE. Stewart
hasn’t really mastered the art of nuanced facial expression, so a close zoom on
her face is about as expressive as faded wallpaper. You know how 80% of
communication comes from body language? Well, that assuredly isn’t true, but
the fact is, a lot of communication is through body language. And when the
camera is zoomed so far in you can’t see bodies, so you don’t see any body
language. Had there been some body language, maybe we would have felt a bit of
the sexual tension. If she is wrapping her legs around him, and pressing her
pelvis into him, then we would get the picture. But not from zooming in on the
faces. (Of course, had they been more racy, then parents would have thrown a
fit. Which just goes to show what an enormous pander this movie was.)
Oh, the romance. So yeah, that was bad. What else is there in the plot of
Twilight? Well, some other stuff, I suppose. The pacing is entirely wrong. It’s
slower than a dead whale on land, but that should only be expected—after all,
they were trying to condense a tedious and self-indulgent teenage diary into a
two hour film. Let’s take a moment and take a quiz. What was the one thing you
knew about the movie before you went to see it? That it was about vampires?
That Edward was a vampire? Yeah. If it wasn’t already perfectly obvious from
the trailer (subtlety is not a strong point of this film), then most likely
some breathy teenage Twihard told you while ejaculating about how great Edward
was. So why then, does the movie spend an entire hour discovering Edward is a
vampire? A terrible script is the only explanation I can come up with, as this
was one of the densest decisions I’ve watched in film for quite some time. For
an entire hour you get to watch the stupid and vacuous version of high school
Bella attends. This is boring. So much time is wasted in the slow beginning
that the male audience has lost interest by the time things start occurring
(and the movie jumps the shark). By comparison, the ending seems rushed. After
the revelation at the half way mark that Edward is a vampire, everything starts
happening in fast-forward. Just fast enough that the ridiculous gaps in logic
fly by before you can notice.
Yeah, the plot is pretty bad, and slow. But that’s not the only thing that goes
into making a good movie, right? Atmosphere and setting can do a great deal to
improve a movie. So what’s the setting like? Well, for one thing, vampires are
pussies.
Probably all of you are already aware of the numerous ways the vampire myth has
been raped in Twilight. Vampires aren’t allergic to garlic, silver doesn’t burn
them, crosses don’t repel them, running water doesn’t repulse them, their
reflections show up in mirrors, sunlight doesn’t disintegrate them. What does
sunlight do? Actually, it’s nearly as bad in Twilight. It brings on a bout of
embarrassingly bad CGI, along with a lovely background accompaniment of
tingtingting. (Because Edward’s sparkles are so cool, they even make tinkling
noises.) So bad that it prompts a deep shame in Edward, so he’ll never want to
appear in light. The point is, these “vampires” are hardly vampires at all.
They are closer to Greek gods with an occasional penchant for blood (which
compared to Zeus’s remarkable diet for pretty women is perfectly acceptable),
except that the Greek gods had flaws. Edward should have been Dionysus with
blood in place of wine; instead, he became Apollo, without the jealous rages.
What is the problem with this though? Shouldn’t we encourage authors to break
out of the cliché, to reinvent and reimagine, to expose us to new realms and
adventures? Well, sure, but don’t go calling something what it’s not. If I
invented a murderous race of midget men who burrow into your chest as you sleep
and eat your heart whole, I don’t go calling them elves. Why not? Because
elves, like vampires, are a fantastic race with existing connotations. These
things have definitions and traditions; they aren’t yours to use as a label for
just anything you think of. Sure, you can create a nice play off a race, and
get away with calling it with the original name, but when you reach the point
where your idea is no longer the original concept, you know you’ve made a
mistake.
Stephanie Meyer admitted to having no awareness of the existing myths
surrounding the vampire, which is a stunning example of poor research. Had she
even taken the step of Googling vampire as her “protagonist” Bella does, she
could have glimpsed the vast mythos surrounding the vampire. Instead, she
probably read some Anne Rice novels, which are already a road to hell. I have
no doubt in my mind that Stephanie Meyer did not read Dracula before beginning
her series. Her use of the vampire is entirely irreverent.
Using an existing word for a new concept dilutes the meaning of word, and
confuses the idea of your own concept. Doubtless lots of people went to see
Twilight expecting to see a vampire movie. I can only imagine that the surprise
was unpleasant. That wasn’t a vampire movie, of course not. At worst, this is
false advertising, at best this is an act of ignorance. I’m grateful Stephanie
Meyer did not attempt to create a race of dwarves—tall handsome men with well
maintained facial hair and no fondness for alcohol.
As a consequence of the impotent conception of the vampire comes a distinct
lack of atmosphere. Twilight is not a scary movie. When a vampire seems more
content to gently nuzzle your throat instead of eviscerating it, you begin to
get comfortable. There is not a moment in the movie where you feel like Bella
is threatened, even assuming you thought of Bella as a sympathetic character.
The trailer tries to play up the “action-filled” parts of the movie, to try and
trick hapless males into the watching the film. In doing so, they accidentally
included every scene involving action in that entire movie. The trailer is an
infinitely scarier piece of cinematography than the actual movie. Every
potentially scary situation that was displayed in the trailer is infinitely
diffused by a ridiculous display of vampire power that renders the threat
nonexistent. Thus the “horror” designation on this Horror/Action/Romance movie
seems misappropriated. Same goes for the “action” designation.
It’s also hard to take seriously the atmosphere of the movie when it is
saturated with a ridiculous amount of product placement. Apple, BMW, Chevy,
Google, Rainier, Volvo, etc. I can’t tell if they thought this was a genuinely
good idea, or if it was a cynical attempt at marketing to a much sought after
demographic, but either way it was a complete mood killer.
None of this is helped by the backdrop provided for this movie. The sleepy
Pacific Northwest is beautiful in film, but it has a soporific quality. This
isn’t a flaw in of itself, but it compounds some other problems this movie has.
The only time it was put to good use was with the tree climbing scene, but that
was ruined by drunken camera work. It’s one thing to do a panoramic sweep of
the landscape, it’s quite another to orbit around like a crack-addicted
honeybee.
And now I’ve completely lost my train of thought, so I’ll talk about some
visual aspects of the film.
Well, the “special” effects were pretty terrible. Every time a vampire jumped
they did so in a parabola, so neatly arced that you could plot it in algebra
class. That they were swinging on wires was painfully obvious. It wasn’t helped
by the cheesy motion blur effect that the vampires had when running, which was
stolen directly out of Queen of the Damned (which is just fitting, considering
Anne Rice had to have inspired Stephanie Meyer). Not to mention the whoosh ing
sound they made as they jumped.
All of this combined to make the baseball scene one of the stupidest moments in
all of cinema. The Minnesota Nice finally wore off around here, when we were
laughing our asses off in the theater. Some grown woman snapped and screamed,
“Would you quit it with your annoying laugh!” in about the bitchiest voice
possible. Of course, she wasn’t yelling at me, because my laughter doesn’t
sound annoying—must have been one of you other people, to be sure. The entire
scene can be summarized like this: everyone sets up ridiculously quickly, Bella
pretends to act, Alice pitches (sexy), Rosalie hits the ball, Edward runs,
moment of drama, Alice pitches (sexy), Carlisle hits the ball, Edward and Hunky
Dude collide, Alice pitches (sexy), Jasper hits the ball, Hunky Dude jumps,
Biker Dudes show up. They hit the ball the same way every single time. Super
interesting. And they didn’t keep track of score, or show who was on what base,
so it’s not like there was any reason to be interested in the game itself. It
was simply there to show off the might of the vampires, and introduce CONFLICT.
Conflict with ridiculous looking biker dudes, that is. Twilight, like any self
respecting film, makes its villains look like utter retards, which makes us
really scared of them, or something.
Not that James was the only person who looked silly. They all did. The Cullen
family looked like a group of A&F models dropped into flour. Which was probably
all the effort the make up department put into it. Additionally, Bella looks
pale enough to be a vampire already, which is just hunky-dory. The sparkles…
were terrible. When Edward went out into the sun to show Bella what a
monstrosity he was there was another round of laughter from our
ultra-conspicuous row. That was probably the worse CGI I have ever seen in my
entire life, including while I was in a first year computer modeling class.
Someone must have just taken a photoshop sparkle brush and applied it to
Edward, because that’s what it looked like. The sparkles were so small and
close together it looked like Edward had a layer of white fur—utterly
ridiculous. And that scene was the dream that inspired the book, I kid you not.
In summary, the entire thing was one massive collage of fail and stupid. If you
are going to see this movie make sure you see it with a friend. Also make sure
that either the friend pays, or the friend puts out. Otherwise it is
unacceptable to be caught watching this movie.
the movie was.. lets just say i have mixed emotions towards it. i personally
think the reviewer was too harsh and when you read this review and a lot of
other reviews you can tell if the reviewer has read the book or not easily
mainly because of how they rate the movie and opinions. if they have not read
the book they seem to like the movie simply because they have nothing to
compare it too, if they have read the book the movie gets a bad review because
the movie was... well nothing compared to the book (but ' not sure in this
reviewers case) . i will say i have become addicted to the twilight BOOKS i
would not call myself a "twilighter" but am quite fond of them.
excuse me erika-snowden, but twilight is nowhere close to harry potter. the
twilight hype was for nothing; i was sorely disappointed by the movie. it was
choppy as though the producers only picked out the fan's favourite scenes and
mushed them together to make the movie.
umm.... i understand where the critic is coming from but to be honest it doesnt
mean s**t whne compared to the love and loyalty of twilight fans. yea there
could have been some extra stuff but the fact remains that every girl and guy
that loves this book has there dream answer we get to read and watch our
favorite love story come to life. It will take something huge for new moon to
fail. this one was about edward. the next it will be about jacob that brings in
what an exta thousand to the already huge fan base. excuse me mr.crtic you can
hate the player but dont hate the game. (if u dont understand what that means
ask a black friend lol)
What did the publishers say to J K Rowling? They didn't like it at first, and
now what has happened to it?
So its not your thing, know this, millions of people all over the world love
it, so it can't be that bad. For your information it is not just teenagers
enjoying it, adults too, theres a whole website devoted to twilight loving mums!
Twilight is the new Harry Potter, accept it anjd get over yourself.
No offence intended.
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