You might not have known about it, but some movie called Twilight came out this past weekend. You wouldn't have known it because there was practically no marketing of the film whatsoever. It wasn't on every channel, or on the front of every magazine from Tiger Beat to Ladies Home Journal. It stars tons of name actors performing surprisingly meaty roles that stretch the boundaries of their craft. What little buzz it's attained has been through word of mouth only based off critical reviews of it's rich, deft, storytelling.
Obviously that's all b.s. This is without doubt the most overhyped movie of the year, and while that doesn't automatically disqualify the film from being good it does have the effect of magnifying the criticism when the film tanks. In every sense of the word this movie is a turd. It smelled from the first trailer I saw months ago, and it smelled worse over time and now the stink is a vapor trail wafting behind long after the opening weekend receipts have been tallied.
The film, inspired by the Stephanie Meyer book of the same name, tells the story of Bella Swan, played by one of my favorite actresses Kristen Stewart. Bella has just moved to the impossibly cloudy town of Forks, WA to live with her father. Why's the town so cloudy? So that vampires can walk around all day, silly! Duh! Her father is the folksy chief of police who's main job appears to be the cliche of hanging around the one diner in all of town and ordering the largest steak in the house. Bella is the new girl, so she's immediately taken a liking to by everyone. She's an instant celebrity. Well, to everyone but the Cullens, that is. The Cullens are the mysterious "family" of cool kids who hang out together in school. They are impossibly pale, impossibly good looking, and never eat anything. Oh, and they are never around when the sun is shining. I think there might be something wrong with them. Something vampirey.
Bella finds herself attracted to Edward Cullen, played by that guy who Voldemort killed in one of the Harry Potter movies. But Edward doesn't seem to like her back, in fact he actively avoids her. That is, until he's forced to save her life suddenly and outs himself to her. Then he can't stop talking. And when he talks...it's...like this all the.....time. He's so dark and moody it's a wonder he gets out of bed in the morning. Oh wait, he's a vampire, he doesn't have a bed. Color me stupid. Edward reveals that he is drawn to Bella, not because she's hot or anything, he never actually tells her anything remotely romantic, but because her "blood smells sweet". Try that one next time you're out at the bar, fellas. There's a small window time where that line might actually work, and if the lady in question has seen this movie more than once your chances increase two-fold. So Bella, being the cheap skank that she is, likes the fact that she is the Splenda™ of human cattle, decides she can't be without Edward now. She's introduced to his family, led by Peter Facinelli. Yes, that Peter Facinelli. He's playing somebody's Dad now. The guy from Can't Hardly Wait and Fastlane is a daddy figure.
For the better part of two hours nothing of note happens in this slow moving train of a film. Bella and Edward make awkward googly eyes at eachother for roughly 90 minutes. It's not terribly interesting, in fact it's downright boring. That is unless you are one of the myriad of of pimply faced little girls swooning everytime Edward Cullen....well, he doesn't actually do anything. Oh wait, he climbs trees and bounces falling apples off his foot. He's the monkey organ grinder of movie vampires. In all seriousness the vast majority of the early part of this movie is Bella and her not quite cool, not quite geeky friends. It's not terribly fun to watch. There's some stuff about people being murdered in town by "wild animals" that isn't compelling because we know where it's headed from the first mention of it. There is absolutely no conflict in this film. It's never in question whether Bella or Edward will be together. There's never a question whether his family will accept her, in fact they do quite easily. They try to make something out of Nikki Reed's(director Catherine Hardwick's muse) character perhaps not liking Bella but nothing comes of it. There's a trio of "evil" vampires who become rivals near the end but it amounts to literally ten minutes of a crisis for Bella and Edward. I guess this was supposed to be the time when Edward shows how much he really cares for her...sweet...smelling...blood. They even remove the most simple of problems for vampires, which is their presence in sunlight. In this silly little OK! Magazine world created for this movie, sunlight makes the vampires prettier rather than kills them. Yes, it makes them even more attractive. This movie simply abhors anything that stands in the way of making life difficult for it's high school sweethearts. I dare say there was more drama in High School Musical than in this mess.
Catherine Hardwick, who has made a career making shallow teen flicks of inflated importance, has decided to completely subtract the importance element from her resume here. This film is total schlock. It doesn't work as a vampire movie. It doesn't work as a teen drama. It doesn't work on any level whatsoever. It's wasted the talents of some great actresses like Stewart, Nikki Reed, and particularly Anna Kendrick. And what's worse for me it has finally found a way to make vampires decidedly UNcool. A feat I thought damn near impossible. I just hope this isn't the stake to the heart to other, more competent vampire movies.
4/10
