Twilight will suck the sanity out of you

Like any good film critic, I try to watch films that, despite my personal dislike of the subject matter and/or plot in general, have derived a public consensus of its awesomeness in order for me to deliver an objective criticism. Twilight was my project last night; I was curious to find out why this was one of the best-selling movies in the past year, and why it warranted a second installment. Basically, I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Critics hailed it as “the next Harry Potter”; Meyer was showered with praise for her “brilliant prose”. I was confused. Not to toot my own horn, but usually when it comes to films and books, I’m usually on the up and up on the breakthrough films and writers, especially books that would be considered comparable to the Harry Potter books. I was astounded – why, if the Twilight series was such an awesome read, had I never attempted to pick it up?

Curious as to why the books were being hailed as the second coming of a J K Rowling wannabe, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. I picked up a copy of Twilight (no, I did not pay for it) and skimmed through the first couple of pages. My initial reaction? There wasn’t anything new about this story. Meyer’s tale is annoyingly common, and her take on vampires was stereotypical (pale, brooding, see: The Lost Boys), other than the fact that they happen to be  sparkly [literally]. Not only do the books suffer from mediocrity and even border on plagiarism (with its borrowed themes from Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mystery books as well as the more well-known Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but the storyline was so amazingly silly that I did not even bother finishing the book. In my opinion, the book reads like teenage erotica. I find it hilarious that parents around the country are actually pushing their prepubescent little girls to read this book, when all it is is really just some teenage girl’s sex dream about a vampire she’s obsessed with. At least in True Blood, Sookie Stackhouse is more open and honest about the fact that she wants to get it on with Bill Compton. And that’s at least more forgivable because the show is on HBO and is R-Rated, whereas Twilight is recommended as reading material in middle schools around the US.

I can’t say I had higher hopes for the film. When I heard about all the buzz surrounding instant stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, I thought, “well that’s great, another batch of young stars get a chance to make their names.” Unfortunately, the film was even worse than the book. I can’t even begin to describe how awful the movie was. The only other film I have said was completely awful was Max Payne, and you all know how terrible that movie was. Anyway, so let me tell you what I really thought about the movie.

Kristen Stewart, as Bella, the heroine of the story, was genuine, but incredibly boring and lackluster. I feel like Stewart isn’t a very good actress because she lets her own personality overtake the characters she plays. if you watch her previous films, like In the Land of Women, Into the Wild and Adventureland, you’ll see that she’s playing the same characters over and over again, except in different settings. I have seen her in person, at the Comic-Con Twilight panel, and believe me, she definitely injects her own personality into her characters. Good acting is supposed to be about immersing yourself into a role and engaging in such a transformation that you are barely even recognizable as a separate person from your character. I will give her credit for the effort, because I feel like as an actor she, along with the rest of the cast, was burdened by the lack of depth in the characters as well as a poorly written script.

The storyline was painfully cheesy. I rolled my eyes so many times I think I was thisclose to having a seizure because of it. To be honest, I didn’t finish the movie (in fact, I only sat through 30 minutes of it) so I can’t really say that it gets better, but from the length of time I watched it, I felt like I was in movie hell. It was movie hell in the sense that the acting was so shoddy, that it felt like I was watching a high school play performed by amateurs at the school auditorium.  The script was so stupid, there were whole conversations between characters that absolutely made no sense. The storyline was so painfully cheesy – it was essentially a teenage girl worshiping a vampire.

The difference between this film, and shows like True Blood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is that in the shows mentioned, the female characters were strong, independent women who had their own personalities and did not take crap when it was given to them. In Twilight, Bella is basically just a schmuck who follows Edward around like a lovesick puppy. She does not challenge him at all. The thing about Bella as a character in the film is that she was not allowed to progress; by this I mean that we don’t see an investment in the character from the audience. Now, I know that the director and producers were probably just expecting that the moviegoing audience would be comprised of existing Twilight fans already who have read the books, but what of us non-fans? We need to be coaxed into rooting for a character, and to do this, we need ample build up in order to fall in love with each character. In the film, there is nothing of the sort.

Robert Pattinson, who played Edward…Wow, I can’t even begin to describe how sorry I felt for him when he was acting. But then again, if he had better lines I think it would probably have been a little better. I feel like he was treated like more of an object, than as a person, which is hilarious because I never would have expected such a turnaround of stereotypes in a film like this. Edward waltzes into a room, with his brooding glare and pale face, and there’s some godawful rock song in the background. I swear, it felt like I was watching one of those old school classic rock music videos, like Guns N Roses’ “November Rain” or something. Silly, indulgent and cheesy. Apparently this guy is supposed to be the sexiest vampire around, and to me they [the actor, and the entire crew, including make-up and special effects] tried way too hard to make him the it guy.

Really, I just have absolutely no idea how these books were even remotely compared to Harry Potter. I mean, it is nowhere near as good as the Harry Potter series; nowhere near as imaginative or as gripping. I would say it’s not even worth picking up in the first place, just from the sheer lack of good writing in it. Overall, I see absolutely no pros in this movie. Bad acting, bad writing, bad direction, horrible make-up and special effects. Like I said before, MOVIE HELL. Every scene in the movie was like torture, having to endure the terrible acting on top of the lousy script. And whoever the director is needs to find another job. I shudder now, when I look back at the 30 minutes I wasted watching Twilight, and I maintain that it was one of the most terrible films I’ve ever seen. I gotta say, it’s like I have a sixth sense when it comes to being able to tell if a movie is gonna be shit. I could tell it was going to be shit from the previews I saw at Comic-Con, and lo and behold: Twilight may have epic failed in the vampire department (even the story department, in general), but it definitely succeeded in sucking the sanity out of me.

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