by Jay Bamber

Created on: July 10, 2009   Last Updated: July 13, 2009

Bella Swan is shy so moving from her flaky mother in Phoenix to the rainy small-town Forks where everybody will notice her is hardly an inviting thought. She has to experience the humiliation of the first day of school and dodge the advances of her male school mates, something which goes against her sweet nature, as well as try and form some semblance of a relationship with her absent-minded father. She seems to consign herself to a life of boredom when Edward Cullen, a mysterious and enigmatic teen, whirls into her existence forcing her to fall in love as well as pushing into a dark world of the supernatural and danger worse than she could have ever imagined.

The Twilight novel wasn't high quality literature but it did hit on a few elements which were genuinely compelling and crafted a central romance which has led it to become one of the best selling books of all time; it was sweet and sincere and so committed to the ridiculous world which it created that it was weirdly absorbing. And by following the source material so closely Melissa Rosenberg and Catherine Hardwicke create a film which is romantic and exciting, as well as surprisingly artistic, but fails to jump over the book's most obvious flaws. At times the Twilight film is genuinely engaging with more than a few visually and emotionally gripping sequences, but it insists on throwing in cheesy special effects, horrendous bits of dialogue and a few truly bizarre set pieces. Its a mix of amazing and terrible, much like the novel which inspired it, which is a shame because there is real potential here for a film with sharp fangs and a fluttering heart. Where the book was just serious enough to make the central relationship feel life-or-death tense, the film comes off as more than faintly ludicrous by piling stupidity onto an an already questionable premise. There are moments when the badly executed action sequences subside and the romantic elements shine through but there is no escaping the fact that this adaptation of Twilight lacks bite (pun very much intended).

One of the most striking things about The Twilight Saga's original cinematic outing is it's surprisingly indie and artistic aesthetic; it has a pleasingly low budget feel which makes the whole thing look like a personal drama rather than a Hollywood franchise (although the low-budget makes the special effects look hammy, dated, pathetic and highly distracting). There are some highly unusual, and memorable, visual quirks and the whole project

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>