Twilight Review

Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 11.24.2008

With legions of book fans one on side and horror purists on the other ready to rip it apart, can it possibly survive the hype? The answer is...mostly, yeah.

Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
Written by: Melissa Rosenberg

Starring:
Kristen Stewart - Bella Swan
Robert Pattinson - Edward Cullen
Peter Facinelli - Carlisle Cullen
Billy Burke - Charlie Swan
Elizabeth Reaser - Esme Cullen
Ashley Greene - Alice Cullen
Cam Gigandet - James
Jackson Rathbone - Jasper Hale
Nikki Reed - Rosalie Hale
Taylor Lautner - Jacob Black
Gil Birmingham - Billy Black
Christian Serratos - Angela Weber
Michael Welch - Mike Newton
Anna Kendrick - Jessica Stanley
Gregory Tyree Boyce - Tyler Crowley
Justin Chon - Eric Yorkie
Kellan Lutz - Emmett Cullen
Sarah Clarke - Renée Dwyer
Rachelle Lefèvre - Victoria
Edi Gathegi - Laurent
Matt Bushell - Phil Dwyer



Running Time: 122 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some violence and a scene of sensuality.

Vampires have always been associated with forbidden romance, as far back as cinema goes and even further into literature. Some of the first piece of vampire fiction, such as the 1773 poem Lenore, were about people returning from the grave in order to bring their beloved across the shroud of death with them. This was refined with the 1819 short story “The Vampyre,” written by John Polidori during the same famous friendly ghost story competition that brought about Frankenstein and considered the progenitor of the romantic vampire story. That work eventually led up to the mother of all vampire stories, Dracula. The Stoker novel was, by and large, the launching pad for vampires on the silver screen. Nosferatu was the first adaptation, albeit unlicensed, and soon in 1931, an actor named Bela Lugosi gave us the first definitive direct translation of the novel, making Dracula the charming, handsome creature that everyone today knows him as. This was the beginning of the romantic vampire in cinema, a template that has been echoed countless times all the way through to the present. There have been the many incarnations of Dracula by Universal, Hammer Horror, Francis Ford Coppola and more; the 1987 classic Near Dark and the same year’s cult hit The Lost Boys; 1995’s vampire-as-AIDS-metaphor film The Addiction; and the Underworld movies, not to mention Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Forever Knight, and the new HBO series True Blood. All of these and many others have used vampirism as a metaphor for forbidden love or desire, a correlation that is deeply embedded into the public consciousness.

Of course, the vampire has continued on in literary fiction as well. The most recent success in the genre was Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. The first of the series was published in 2005 and became an instant and huge success. It has now been translated into twenty languages and has spawned three sequel books. It was no surprise that Hollywood would come knocking, and in 2007 Summit Entertainment came calling. Television writer/producer Melissa Rosenberg was hired to script the film and director Catherine Hardwicke was attached. The film’s release was originally scheduled for December 12th, but the WGA strike caused some schedule shifting, and it took the coveted spot originally held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Following a media hype that has steadily built over the last several weeks, Twilight has finally hit theaters with many fans asking the question ‘Can it live up to the hype?”

The film centers on Isabella “Bella” Swan (Stewart), a seventeen-year-old girl living in Phoenix, Arizona. Her mother Renee (Clark) and stepfather Phil (Bushell) are newly married, and headed off to Florida for Phil’s work as a minor league baseball coach. Rather than go with them, Bella moves to the Pacific Northwest, more specifically the town of Forks, Washington. Her father Charlie (Burke) lives there as the sheriff. Bella and Charlie’s relationship is a bit strained due to the amount of time since they’ve seen each other, but that’s the least of the young girl’s problems. She’s entering school in the middle of the school year, and though she has no problem finding a group of friends, she finds herself drawn to one man in particular; Edward Cullen (Pattinson). He and his family are the rich and popular kids who keep largely to themselves; it is soon evident however that Edward is just as drawn to Bella. After a near-miss accident reveals to Bella that Edward is more then he appears, she finds herself intrigued…and becomes drawn into Edward’s world. He is a vampire, of course, albeit one who doesn’t prey on human blood—a vegetarian, as the Cullens call it. While they attempt to take things slow, there are those within the family, such as Rosalie (Reed) who thinks Bella threatens them all. When a nomadic coven of bloodthirsty vampires comes across the Cullens led by James (Gigandet), Rosalie’s concerns prove to possibly be true, and Bella finds her life and family in very deep danger.

There will be, undoubtedly, several reactions to this particular movie from audiences. As Twilight is a much-loved fiction series, there are purists who will decry the movie for not being true enough to the source material. On the other side, there will be hardcore vampire film fans that will condemn the film—and the books, for that matter—for taking the terror away from the undead. This review comes from someone who falls completely in between, who has not read the novels and yet does not have issue with the “teen romantic” vampire. As stated above, the concept of a vampire as romantic figure is based thoroughly within the core of its origins in fiction, and even further back to its meaning in folklore. In that definition, the vampires presented in the movie—and presumably in Meyers’s novels—are as true to the heritage of a vampire as anything Stephen King or Tales from the Crypt have managed to conjure for our nightmares. Meyer’s vampires, particularly as written into the script by Rosenberg, are clearly intended for a young adult crowd. The Cullens are remarkably civil for undead creatures who feed off the life force of others, and there are elements of them that only serve to make them more appealing to such a fan base. And yet, there is a definite threat behind them as described by Edward several times, hinted at by Rosalie and embodied by James.

The story is smart in that it focuses first on the character of Bella, and takes time to develop her relationship with her father and those around her before the supernatural elements come into play. The first act takes its time to unfold, introducing us to Bella, her father, and a few members of the Native American tribe that live near Forks before moving ahead. The pacing of the film beyond that is also good, though there are times within the movie seems to go a little too slow. Rosenberg focuses the screen time on Edward and Bella’s developing relationship as contrasted with that of her disconnection to her flighty mother and emotionally isolated father, and while that is the crux of the storyline, it leaves several things only lightly explored at best, such as Bella’s school friends, the rest of the Cullens and the appearance of James and his coven. This leaves those aspects of the film somewhat lacking, as the viewer is left wanting more from them which is somewhat disappointing.

Luckily, in the hands of Hardwicke, Bella’s relationships with Edward and her parents are done quite well. Hardwicke is no stranger to the issues that teenagers face as they come of age, having been the director of both thirteen and Lords of Dogtown. Both of these films dealt with teenagers coming of age and dealing with the issues of growing up, and Hardwicke translates her experience from both of these movies nicely into Twilight. One of her greatest contributions here is the focus on making the film seem real; while another director could have made a clean, glamorized film to appeal to the CW Network crowd a la the 2006 Renny Harlin disaster The Covenant, Hardwicke instead chooses to set the film firmly within a realistic setting. Filmed in several parts of Oregon, Forks is no glamorous 90210-like setting, and Hardwicke manages to make the film atmospheric without seeming overwrought and glitzy. The special effects are quite serviceable, if hardly spectacular; a particular scene where Edward carries Bella to the top of a mountain and outside of cloud cover to show her what he looks like in the sun is very nicely done without being overstated. Hardwicke was the perfect choice to oversee this film, and she manages to turn several situations which would have been potentially disastrous in the hands of a lesser director. Hardwicke doesn’t do a perfect job, however; some scenes seem entered in specifically to appeal to that 90210 fan base, such as the scene where Bella first meets Edward. A fan blows her scent over to him, and the shot is done in an unfortunately overdone piece of slow-motion that is incredibly jarring compared to the rest of the movie. Outside of a few of these shots she does well, and the fight scene at the climax is also nicely done without seeming too clichéd.

The acting is largely good, with a few hits and misses. Kristen Stewart has been slowly building her career as an actress in such early work as Panic Room and Cold Creek Manor before both missing with last year’s The Messengers and hitting with a supporting role in Into the Wild. Here, she plays Bella quite nicely as an awkward kid, both emotionally and physically. She is the eyes of the audience, and the whole of the movie rests on her shoulders, a job she quite ably rises to the challenge of. Opposite her in the role of Edward, Robert Pattinson is less good. Pattinson seems to struggle in the role for the first act, as he is supposed to be the glamorous most eligible bachelor of their high school and carry an almost disconcerting quality of charm about him and generally fails. Once the introduction is done, Bella realizes what’s what and the story gets into the relationship stage, Pattinson relaxes and is far more comfortable in the role. The rest of the Cullens fare much better; as the patriarch of the family, Peter Facinelli makes a quite intriguing Carlisle, and Elizabeth Reaser is charming as Esme. Nikki Reed, a veteran of Hardwicke films, does quite well as Rosalie and Ashley Greene makes the most of her screen time as Alice. Billy Burke is also excellent as Charlie, managing to portray his uncertainty about how to re-establish his relationship with Bella as very real and not a one-note sort of parent role it could have been. He also manages to score some laughs in his scenes opposite Edward, including a nice take on the first meeting between father and boyfriend. Cam Gigandet’s performance as James is clearly the most unrestrained, and he pulls it off well by never going into a state of campiness. The rest of the supporting cast is fine as well, with few missteps.

In the end, Twilight is a movie with its share of flaws that keep it from being considered a great film, though those flaws seem to come from the source material itself. There is an extended denouement that seems to last too long past the climax, and the lack of fleshing out of several supporting characters is, according to fans of the book that I’ve spoken to, something that is a fault in the book as well. The same fans say that the movie is, while obviously different in some parts due to necessity, surprisingly close to the source material and satisfying to those who have read the novels. The theater in which I saw it, which was clearly filled with the target audience of the novel’s fans, seemed quite happy with it. For those who are not fans, Twilight presents a good, if not great, entry into the vampire film genre if you can get past the fact that these are not horror characters, but merely supernatural ones.

The 411: Director Catherine Hardwicke was, quite possibly, the perfect choice to direct Twilight. She takes the source material as written by Stephanie Meyers and scripted by Melissa Rosenberg and roots it firmly into reality, avoiding the "teen glitz" feel that would have doomed it. While Robert Pattinson has a few issues settling into the role of Edward in the first act, he does so eventually and Kristen Stewart carries the film through until then. Despite the presence of some weak shots and one or two poorly constructed scenes, Twilight is a movie that entertains and stands strongly for those looking for a good supernatural romance.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]