Movie review: Twilight

Have you ever wondered what an emo vampire would be like? If so then Twilight is your chance to find out. Twilight is based on the first book of a popular new series. Now keep in mind when reading this that I have not read the books so I can't make any comparisons. I am just taking this movie as it is.

The movie follows a young girl named Bella who moves into upstate Washington to live with her Dad. While going to school she noticed a boy named Edward and develops an infatuation with him. But she notices that there is something different about him and his family. When he saves her life by pushing aside a van with his hand she starts to investigate. It doesn't take long before she figures out he's a vampire and confronts him with it.

Edward acts like a lot of emo kids. He's quiet and reserved and seems to shy away from society. But at the same time he looks a bit like a goth without the weird clothes and heavy makeup. But one thing I couldn't help but notice about him, and this was pointed out by a friend, were his huge eyebrows. It looks like he's got a caterpillar above each eye and at times it was a bit distracting. Is it too much to ask for them to pluck them or wax them before filming?

Of course every movie has to have a villain. In this case it's some other vampires that show up and want to hunt Bella. Now Edward and his family are all what they call vegetarians because they don't feed on people, just animals. But these other vampires are not so two of them decide to track Bella while her and Edward run away. As you'd expect this leads to a dramatic fight scene and the prerequisite "is the main character going to die?" part.

You could tell that this is just the first part of a series and they are establishing characters and getting things ready for the sequels that are bound to come. My big problem with this movie was it was nothing I really hadn't seen before. The girl falling in love with a vampire thing has been ton a of times before, the TV show Moonlight for example. But everything felt like it was something I had seen before.

There was a cool scene where the vampires were playing baseball but it didn't last as long as it should have. There are a lot of great things they could have done with that scene but I think it only lasted about 2 minutes before it stopped. Now another scene I think I have to mention is when Edward goes out into the sun. When he does his skin shines like one of Liberace's suits. This is done to explain why he's never around in the daytime but it's weird and I was expecting Elton John to walk out and start playing a song.

As for the acting all around it was just OK. Bella and Edward are relative newcomers and I'm sure as the series goes on their skills will improve. But early in the film it seemed like people were trying to be like the average small town people but it was obvious they were faking. Also some of the teenagers were trying just a little bit too hard to be typical teenagers. Thankfully it didn't degrade to cliché or all the girls acting like valley girls. But they were just a little too atypical to seem real. At times the whole thing seemed a bit boring which should not happen in a movie about vampires. I kept asking myself when it was going to get good and people were going to going to get eaten.

Also I felt parts of the movie felt a bit rushed. It's like Bella falls in love with Edward right away before she even knows him. I understand the whole love at first sight thing but it's like he went from wanting to avoid her at all costs to being madly in love with her overnight.

One thing vampire movies seem to do a lot is change what exactly a vampire is. In this movie they can go out during the day, are super strong, super fast and fire is the best way to kill them.

Overall I'd say this was an OK vampire movie. Although it is hard to classify it as a vampire movie because very little blood was drank during the course of the film. I'd be more inclined to call this a teenage romance movie with vampires in it.

My score: 6.5/10