Twilight

So I was browsing the display shelves at the bookshelf and I see a lot of this book called “Twilight”. There’s all these drooling preteen girls standing around it rubbing it all over their naked bodies. It strikes me as odd because that usually only happens on Thursdays and it’s only Tuesday. I shrug it off and head for the exit. I go to meet a friend and they say to me:

“Carl! Have you read this Twilight book? It’s the greatest thing ever written! It’s like the author knows me and wrote about me.”

“No I haven’t.” I say to my friend, who is nearing thirty. “What’s it about?”

“It’s about vampires! And it’s about this girl named Bella and she falls in love with a vampire and the vampire falls in love with her.” I immediately vomit every meal I’ve ever eaten all over her and somewhere the chick from the exorcist is saying

“Damn…”

When I got home I logged onto a forum and went to the book discussion section. I see Twilight has its own official thread and I see a hundred threads below all talking about Twilight. Suddenly my computer comes to life and says to me:

“Carl! I read this book called Twilight and its amazing! The author is nothing short of a writing goddess.”

“But you’re a computer!” I say to my computer.

“And I’ve read Twilight. You’re the only one who hasn’t and you’re missing out!” Well I proceeded to smash my possessed computer with a sledge hammer and go to bed.

The next day I’m meeting another friend to see a movie and I come across a big poster for a movie called Twilight. I can tell the guy on it is a vampire because his teeth are showing and he has dark and mysterious eyes. I get that familiar desire to throw up and I quickly move along. It’s become evident to me that I just have to jump on the bandwagon. So I head down to the bookstore to get a copy of Twilight. I manage to claw my way through the pile of twelve year old girls and go to grab a copy. However when my hand touches it I find my skin begins to burn and I am forced to withdraw. The only thing that makes the sensation stop is running into a church and cooling it in holy water. So reading the book is clearly out of the question. A sane man would let it go but I decide to see the movie. That’s close enough and surely it wont be the worst twenty dollars I ever spent in my life… Right?

Oh boy…

So let’s talk about Twilight. Stephanie Meyer never had dreams of being an author but one night she had a dream about a vampire and a young girl falling in love and when she woke up she decided to write it. She did just that and eventually finished a novel called Twilight. Some clever publisher realised what this work was – a preteen sexual fantasy with vampires (vampires are kewl!!!) – and so it was published. Do you know what happens? It became a hit with every girl aged 9 – stupid who had this fantasy already. Twilight was a success and before long the movie came out. Before long I saw this movie. Before long I was wishing I had never heard of Twilight.

Twilight is set in a small Washington country town and follows the story of Isabella Swan (AKA Bella), who moves into town to live with her father (Charlie). Bella is a teenage girl who likes teenage things and partakes in teenage activities with her teenage friends at her teenage school. From day one every person she meets wants to be her friend and go to the prom with her. Being so popular does not, as you might think, flatter Bella but disgust her. She spends some time being both frustrated and sad by having all these boys adoring her. Popularity is such a burden for regular teenage Bella.

Enter Edward Cullen, played by no one in particular, a strange and mysterious loner with pale skin and black eyes, who doesn’t come to school when it’s sunny. She’s the only boy that Bella is interested in and the only boy who isn’t interested in her. In fact, when he first meets Bella he is repulsed by her. A few days later he has apparently gotten over what was bothering him with no explanation for why things change. Maybe Bella changed perfume? The two quickly become friends and start to flirt in their biology class. Before long, things start to develop further. As a response to this, Edward begins to push Bella away and she can’t figure out why until she begins to research vampires on the internet.

Suspecting that Edward may be a horrific, blood sucking, murderous, night monster right out of legend, Bella (being the smart girl she is) takes him up to a secluded spot in the mountains where no one would be able to see them or hear her scream and confronts Edward about her suspicions. Edward admits that he is a vampire and proceeds to show off that his skin sparkles in sunlight, that he has super-human strength and speed and that everything about him, from his voice to his appearance, is naturally enticing. This is accompanied by random destruction of a fallen tree, just to show us he really is the perfect predator and an unstoppable monster that hungers for fresh blood.

“Wow.” You say. “This is sound pretty awesome! A super strong vampire who destroys random trees? Right on!” Well you’re almost on the mark. This scene came close to passing for good cinema and actual entertainment until Edward starts to cry about being immortal and flawless. Apparently timeless perfection makes life difficult for him. Maybe he liked garlic when he was alive? I have no clue. Thinking about it just hurts.

That’s basically it as far as the story behind Twilight. There’s some attempt at a plot but ultimately it’s half-assed and pointless. The focus of the movie is on a frighteningly unrealistic and extremely uninteresting relationship between Edward and Bella. We get to see them do stuff like make-out and give each other knowing looks and hold hands. The sort of stuff that, you know, is extremely boring to watch in real life, let alone in a movie.

At one point in the movie, Edward (AKA Emo-boy) breaks into Bella’s room to see her. She’s surprised but is none the less happy he came over to her house. She asks if Emo-boy sneaks into her room often and he responds:
“Only for the last couple of months. I like to watch you sleep.” Bella, like any normal girl, does not find these stalker activities creepy but finds it so romantic that she decides she would now like to have sex with him. Edward refuses the offer by throwing himself against a wall because he respects Bella… Or because he doesn’t want to hurt her… Or because his circulation is bad. There’s some reason, I’m sure but I really can’t be sure. It was all pretty obscure and I think it’s just there to make us love him more.

There is a cast of supporting characters who get about three seconds of screen time each, which is a shame because some of them, unlike our leading man and lady, have an acting range that’s actually higher than that of a wooden plank. Some of their characters are even likable, an added bonus in this movie! However, we mostly get Emo-Boy and Bella who are detestable and boring, respectively, and both are annoying to no end. Neither of them can act in the slightest. The script actually hurts to listen to. Have I missed anything? Oh yeah, there was one thing that struck me while watching this movie. Every now and then something would happen – I think I counted it happening three of four times in this two hour mess – that would make me laugh. These fleeting moments of entertainment made me realise how Twilight truly failed.

This movie could have been a great romantic comedy. There is one scene where Bella is going to meet Edward’s family. Edward’s entire family are also vampires so when they tried to make dinner for Bella, The Cullen family had no experience making mortal dinners in a modern kitchen; they pulled together as a team to follow the instructions on a cooking show.

Then there’s the scene when Charlie is cleaning his gun and Bella introduces her vampire boyfriend to him. Both these scenes made me laugh. There are other moments like this. Unfortunately these were most likely accidentally placed in there. Someone in the editing missed these overtly entertaining moments of footage and left them in.

I give this movie 0 vampire fangs out of 5. To be fair, I got a laugh here and there and some of the actors proved they could indeed act.

“Are you really being fair, Carl? What about those little funny moments?” You ask me. Well these minor details aren’t even worth half a fang when surrounded by this much awful cinema. They count for something and the movie isn’t, strictly speaking, 100% terrible. But this is still a terrible movie that no one should waste there time on.

“Sounds like it.” You bet it is.