Twilight Film - Better than the book

Twilight is intoxicating. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.

It’s intoxicating like service station alcohol — you get a hangover before you’re drunk. It’s addictive. You can’t turn away. Like a moth drawn to an industrial sized fan.

For those of you nailed in a coffin for the last few months, the story is this: Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart – Panic Room, Into the Wild) moves to Washington to be with her father, because her mother married a minor league baseball player. Bella makes friends at the school, but keeps her distance and eventually dismisses them entirely when Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson best known as the martyred Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter) comes along.

It’s love at first sight. They look across the room, their eyes meet.

She sees him and her heart leaps.

He sees her and gags violently.

Because Edward and his entire family are vampires. They’ve sworn off human blood, which is why Edward is so amusingly stand-offish of Bella – because her blood smells so sweet to him.

Basically, he has a massive blood erection for her.

Over a few dinners, a few life-saving moments, and a lot of stalking, Edward and Bella fall in love. Bella isn’t scared of Edward, because Bella isn’t all that bright and probably doesn’t realise what her period will do to the poor boy. She catches him watching her sleeping, finds out he’s been doing it for months, and is lost in the romance of that fact.

That’s not romantic sweety. That’s creepy.

The catch in their complicated relationship is that:
a) Edward can’t age or die
b) He’s kind of a dick
c) She’s clingy – like in a serious way

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The movie is cinematically flawed. Hand-held camera mixed with wide shots and close-ups of the characters gazing wistfully into each others’ eyes provides an erratic and hasty feel. When the vampires start running or jumping you instinctively wait for the Million Dollar Man theme to start playing.

The film had a relatively modest budget – around $37 million – so the cheesy special effects can be forgiven. Like the make-up that at times made Pattinson look like he’d crawled out of a vat of pancake mix. All forgiven.

The problem is, once again, the plot.

The fact that the movie is fundamentally better than the book (Edward isn’t as polished and has a more human appeal, and Stewart did what she could to breathe life into a card board cut out character) doesn’t mean much.

For people who have read the books, they’ll probably be happy with the film. With the exception of the meadow scene (which they could have put in if they hadn’t wasted so much film on the couple gazing wistfully into each others’ eyes) not much that was in the book didn’t make it on screen.

People who haven’t read the books will be very confused about half way in.

The director, Catherine Hardwick (Thirteen) did well in the opening acts. She focused on teenagers being teenagers, which is something she’s always been good at. The movie falls apart when she starts trying to convince the audience that two people who have known each other for a few weeks have fallen unconditionally and irrevocably in love.

That just doesn’t make sense.

Suddenly the actors lose their drive. They become awkward during romance scenes. They choke out their dialogue trying to build emotion that they just don’t feel. Stewart in particular, seems to have one tone of voice for the entire movie. Bland. Whether she’s meeting new people, falling in love, or being tortured by a tracker bent on her blood – her voice stays the same. Except when she’s nearly having a haemorrhage after Edward suggests she leave town. I did tell you she was clingy.

Pattinson and Stewart have chemistry of course. They managed to generate some real heat in the one scene where the couple do more than gaze wistfully into each other’s eyes. Kudos to them – two people can only do so much with half-baked characters and impossible dialogue.

Fans of Myer will love that some of the dialogue was paraphrased from the books – but what worked for the book (and I’m not saying it did) doesn’t work for the movie. The actors stumble a lot – Pattinson’s accent slips a few times trying to get his mouth around the words.

It’s the unintentional screw-ups that really damage this movie. It’s the dodgy post-production which makes Pattinson’s contact lens clearly visible in one scene. It’s the scenes that aren’t supposed to be funny that are.

When Bella slips over, it’s funny.

When she’s threatened by the nomadic vampires, it’s funny.

When Edward get’s his first whiff of her, it’s HILARIOUS!

But it wasn’t meant to be. And you can tell.

The build up to the one fight scene took an awful lot of groundwork, just to come off in a few minutes of wire stunts and orchestral backing music. It short changed the audience, who expected a smackdown and got a hissy fit.

Compared to the source material, the movie is OK. It provides an escapist sort of realm – where you know it’s trashy but you watch it any way. It’s the teen equivalent of Snakes on a Plane. It doesn’t exactly take a bite out of you, like a vampire movie should. But it will leave you drained.

3.5/5