Twilight

First, I feel like I need to give a disclaimer as to why I even watched this film: 

You're most likely aware already that the Twilight saga has skyrocketed on the pop culture lists--especially among teeny-boppers.  Well, apparently it's also spread to the early college-aged students, I think because we're on the fringe of the adult transition and can still, in some ways, relate to the intense high school emotions that Bella experiences. 

At first I scorned the thought of reading Twilight.  I had no intentions of doing so, and therefore had no intentions of seeing the film (because I generally like to do things in that order). 

However, with its rise in popularity (and my recollection of when the same thing had happened with Harry Potter--and how I had finally succumbed and loved the series more than the ones who pushed me to read it), I decided to look down my nose and sneer no longer.  I borrowed the books, and dove in with only a smidgeon of distaste. 

The books are not fabulous--but they are addicting.  The first two are the most difficult: Stephanie Meyer has an obsession with set-up and pay-off (as do I, no fault there), but she lays it on way too thickly and doesn't allow much guessing room. 

The turn over to the third book also came with the first surprise for me as the reader--and then I was hooked.  I obsessively finished the last two in the series, and then felt oddly satisfied and even--shudder--protective of the books.  I acknowledge that it's still cheesy-as-hell, and that the end is all cop-out, happy-ending for all, but I'm a sucker for "happily ever after"--even if it does involve vampires and all other ssorts of mythological folklore.  Don't they deserve a happy ending, too?  ;)

It was decided--while I was still in the remnants of obsessive phase, I needed to see the film.  I went by myself--partly because I couldn't find anyone to go with, and partly because I wanted to experience it alone (for a little bit of the embarrassment is still there).

I give the director a lot of credit--she almost exclusively used close ups, using the intimacy of it to string the viewer along with heightened emotional involvement--mirroring the intensity of Bella and Edward's relational pulls and escalated, end-of-the-world feelings.  She sometimes employed strange, circling shots that dipped and swerved and zoomed to extend a scene, but also to give us the same uncomfortableness that Bella feels when she discovers Edward is a vampire.

The special effects could have been better handled, but I think overall they were rather pleasing.  The climactic fight scene was surprisingly well done--my major complaint being that the entire film employed cuts galore, usually reserved for action sequences.  The unorthodox nature of all the cuts to and from close ups made want to scream STOP! so I could just look for a while. 

The narrative...well, it was based on a 500 paged book, so undoubtedly it couldn't be perfect.  But the "main" events were packed together so quickly that it was hard for me to believe the two lovers when they delivered their melodramatic lines.  They  didn't show the relationship enough for me to be convinced.  And the lines themselves look better on paper than they sound spoken aloud.

I shudder to think that they plan on making the other three movies--not that I didn't enjoy those books more (because I definitely did), but they get so unbelievably complex and...weird, that I think it would be nigh impossible for the films to be taken seriously.

For now, I am content to have seen movie magic bring some of the elements of Twilight to life, and feel more satisfied overall than with some other movie adaptations, but it still fell short.

three.