*UK EXCLUSIVE* [Movie Review] TWILIGHT
I’m the wrong guy to review this movie. I say this openly and up front from the start because I’m not out to “bear-bait” the fourteen year old teens and their burning torches as they march upon my home, calling me out for having “no taste” and not knowing what I’m talking about: As much as I like a good ‘romance’ in a movie experience, the key word there is “good”. I’ve never read the book – or series of books – that this film is based on. I don’t find my nether regions suddenly becoming alive, along with the desire to scream uncontrollably, at the sight of Robert Pattinson either. As disclaimers go, this is a pretty upfront and honest one but at the end of the day a film should be judged as what it is and, if I can survive and review Sex & The City: The Movie, then surely I can do this.
Now, for the purposes of full disclosure, I came away from this film fully aware that critical opinion of it is quite favourable in terms of what coverage I have seen (Empire have awarded it four stars, Total Film three and Roger Ebert has given it a reasonably positive write-up too!) but still feeling as if there must be something wrong, there must be something I was missing because I wasn’t sure I “got” what the film was trying to say, on top of what I felt for it as a film overall. I ‘get’ that the movie (and source material) is essentially one long subliminal parable about resisting the urge to put your dick in some girls cooch, or – if the roles were reversed – opening up your legs to the first boy that holds a door open for you and smiles in your general direction, but I don’t ‘get’ that Twilight is being talked about as it is a ‘revelation’ within the foundations of popular culture. It is a blatant burglary of themes, tones and plot points from a vast array of literary and cinematic sources. To put this up against Nosferatu (or, from what I have heard, Let The Right One In) and then claim it is one of the “best vampire movies ever made” [which one critic at my screening actually stated, and which I have read others say a similar type of hyperbole] is a bit like putting a Best Of The Beatles CD by a cover band like The Bootleg Beatles up against any of the real band’s early LPs and saying it is the “greatest album of Beatles music” ever made.
As a brief tangent, with many of the press screenings I attend they are sometimes quite early on in the morning but despite this, when the cinema staff deem those attending worthy, they’ll open up the bar for us to congregate in afterwards and do a bit of ‘socialising’ and mixing of opinions. Post-screening for Twilight, I voiced a concern I had regarding the film that I felt I couldn’t shake and that I felt was polluting my ability to express a proper opinion on it. I was met with extremely aghast reactions and mutterings of “You got that from this film? Seriously? What the hell is wrong with you?” I went so far as to call up the people that were arranging these screenings, get myself on the guest list for the next screening they were putting on and then drive 43 miles (round trip) out of my way to see it one more time. Second time around, I still had this ‘niggle’ that I couldn’t shake:
You see, for me Twilight is well aware that it is playing to a very specific teenage female demographic and I felt that the message it promoted – namely that your first encounter with the mere notion of ‘love’ is the most important thing in the world, above friends and family and worthy of making every sacrifice possible, even your own life – was a pretty dangerous one.
Let me tell you something, I was not always the below-average looking but comfortable with his personality male that you see before you. I was – once upon a time – spotty, with bad posture, greasy hair, an affinity for only talking in movie quotes and absolutely no individual voice or confidence whatsoever. I spent most of my school life latching on to every female that so much as walked past me and ‘falling in love’ with every single one of them, only to face the bitter horrible experience of rejection, time and time again. If somebody had told me that the mere prospect of ‘first love’ during those teenage years was the “most important” factor (at THAT point in my life!) then I would have went home and hung myself.
But it isn’t. And absolutely everything possible should be done to promote this very REAL fact to teenagers the world over. They don’t have to cross divides, go against the odds and defy everything to be with the “one” because give it a matter of years, if not months, then you’re not going to even remember that guy or girl if they walked past you in the street. Hell, I spent two years of my life absolutely OBSESSED with one girl at school who took great delight in rejecting, humilating and embarrassing me for my feelings towards her at every given opportunity. Flash forward to eighteenth months ago, and this same female is now over-weight, unempoyed with three kids by two different fathers and offering to give me a blow-job outside of the pub I bumped into her in as long as I gave her a couple of my cigarettes afterwards*! Trust me, feelings you have about the opposite sex as a teen should not be promoted as having ‘grave importance’.
Twilight advertises this message about ‘the one’ to teenagers, via teenagers, in a teenage-friendly setting (high school) and I worry about the impressionable girls [or guys] out there that are going to see this movie, go out into their day to day lives and place their hearts in the hands of some fellow student that will crush every feeling and dream they had, and there’d be another teen suicide or school massacre as a result. If Twilight had introduced this concept and then nulified it come the film’s end then I don’t think it would have mattered so much. But it doesn’t. Its entire essence is built around this rather creepy, unrealistic notion of ‘love’ that it is handed down to its teen audience.
Anyway, I’ve banged on enough about a sentiment that I stand alone on. What, pray tell, of the film itself? Well, I have to say that Kristina’s outright hatred of the film itself on this very site (taking into account, for the purposes of full disclosure, she has only seen twenty minutes of it and is basing the majority of her opinion off of the book, not the film – this is not a slight, or an attack; just fact!) is a little off. The film isn’t an outright ‘turkey’, it’s not one of the worst ever made. It’s one that is so pointless and mediocre that you want to take people like Kristina in your arms, give them a big warm hug, then make them look you in the eyes whilst you supportively state “Look, this is not worth your energy okay? Let it go. You are a good person. You don’t need to lower yourself to attacking this!” Yet, just to prove my inner conflict, even as I write those words I think back to the film’s over-expressed ‘inner message’ and I can’t help but think “Hmm, maybe Kristina kind of deserves to be set free to savage something with such an unhealthy message?”
Where Kristina is way-off-the-mark though is in her ‘attack’ on the film’s director, Catherine Hardwicke. Taking the absolutely inexplicably awful special effects aside, it is what Hardwicke brings to this film that makes it almost bearable. Her ability to capture the beauty of her locations, to set up an element of tension here and there and her sense of pace, are very much to be commended. I’m not sure I’d be overly willing to entertain a sequel to this ‘franchise’ without her at the helm seeing as a lot of what she did was one of the only aspects I liked. Hardwicke isn’t a “terrorist“, nor does she need our “forgiveness“, she’s just someone who had to make a movie out of very questionable, trite source material that masquerades as something much, much more, and the odds were stacked against her.
Some of that blame can be levied back at her own door, admittedly. She had a say in casting and she chose to populate the movie with sub-par ‘pretty’ people who do not have any real weight as dramatic performers. Did you know, for example, that in one of life’s great ironies one of Twilight‘s stars, Cam Gigandet, has a name that – if you rearrange the letters – spells ‘Talentless Vapid Moron‘, which also works to describe the actor himself. How crazy is that? :/
Gigandet is but a small concern though. Feast (or should I say fester?) your eyes on the film’s male lead:
Robert Pattinson is absolutely awful. Genuinely. Despite my hatred of Orlando Bloom, Pattinson exists as nothing more than the proverbial excrement on the bottom of that actor’s shoe. Surely a buddy-movie starring these two would be nothing more then the indicator that the apocalypse is right upon our door step? To build a franchise on the shoulders of this long piece of wood with a huge mound of hair glued to the top is just utterly absurd. To say there’s no chemistry between him and the female lead, Kristen Stewart, is an unfair attack because it’s like you’ve made a movie about Stewart’s ‘love affair’ with a large tree and then questioned why that ‘love’ did not feel “real” or “human”.
Stewart is a very talented actress and I have enjoyed pretty much everything I have seen her in so far. This, however, was a struggle. More so because it was almost an embarrassment to watch her – this was an actress doing some very delicate, interesting work in a film with a script WAY beneath her and supported by a cast that would look out of place and inept in a school production. I could swear that there are scenes in this movie where Stewart is performing up against “actors” whose lips you can see mouthing along with her lines so they can get their own cues right.
Overall, Twilight is just a forgettable piece of tat. It’s not even quite worthy of being referred to as cinematic belly fluff. It’s just-about-bearable twaddle, with a very unhealthy message attached to it, and which happens to be blessed with a talented director who isn’t bringing her A-game to the table on this movie (which, considering the material she was presented with, is understandable – but also most probably a very clear reason as to why she was not invited back for the sequel) but doesn’t entirely embarrass herself either, and a lead actress who does all she can to keep the movie afloat before eventually just giving up and letting the waves of ineptitude pile over the top of her.
* No, I didn’t take the blow-job! But I did give her a couple of cigarettes. What can I say? I’m a soft-hearted gentleman!
11 Responses to “*UK EXCLUSIVE* [Movie Review] TWILIGHT”
……2 pop corns..
so the scorpion king was THAT bad?
The Scorpion King 2 had a giant “invisible” scorpion!
And I don’t think I need to say anymore then that!
lmao invisible? how do you know it was a scorpion if it was invisible? thats ****ing LAME!
you know what gazz? ill take your word and NOT watch the scorpion king 2 and instead watch shakespeare in love for the 68th time
You say you’re a big Paltrow fan, but I bet you haven’t gone as far as to watch the John Travolta flick SHOUT have you?
Paltrow, in her first ever role, aged 15?
WHAT!?
lmao!
i ****ing saw shout!
and i remember her kiss scene all too well when she kissed that average joe asshole on the fence
i have to admit i was jealous
chris mathews is the luckiest son of a bitch in the whole planet
i don’t understand what is the appeal of Robert Pattinson (Edward), his nose looks funny
How can you talk about twilight as a film about someone who resists ‘putting his dick into a girl’s cooch’!! OMG TWILIGHT IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. whatever you say, you know its amazing really, and youre just jealous you didnt write it or direct the film. WHATEVER!!
Charlotte?
Come on now, why would I be jealous that I didn’t write and direct TWILIGHT, I’m the writer / producer / star / director / caterer of the following movie:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BDD9jGMlxNQ
And that is WAAAAAAAAAAAY better then TWILIGHT if I say so myself, but of course, as the creator of it, I’m a little biased!
PS, I know what you’re going to ask Charlotte and, yes, Stephen Baldwin was not a very nice man to work with! Worse then Alec but better then Daniel!
omg twilight shows the love 2 people can have without the physical side of it and also the all consumming i would die for you love if you dont get it its because u have never been in love!
Kristen Stewart is the perfect Bella .. All around the casting was perfect, everyone had so much so much angst that they fit the story perfectly
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