Contrary to what the title suggests, I actually really enjoyed this film.
All I'm really mocking are the hordes of teenage girls clawing at their faces as they anticipate the film. It probably includes some of my eighth grade girls, and frankly, back in my teenage years? I'd probably have clawed at my face a little too.
For those who have not read the book or seen the previews, Twilight centers around a girl named Bella. Delightfully ordinary, but with a sharp wit, an isolationist attitude and a serious problem with clumsiness. Bella decides to leave her mother and her new step-dad behind in one of the driest places in the US for one of the wettest to live with her father for a while. In a tiny town named Forks, Bella quickly is navigated through the limited social workings of the local high school. She encounters a strange and inhumanly beautiful guy there who seems about bipolar as they come and they develop a nearly immediate fascination with one another.
Push comes to shove? He's a vampire, he wants to both eat her and spend the rest of his days with her and she could care less of the danger at hand. Cue gratuitous girl-porn love story!
While I enjoyed this movie-- and I'll tell you why momentarily, I would like to get my gripes out of the way.
1. The score. I am a self-described connoisseur of movie scores and soundtracks. This movie had an appealing theme, but I found that most of the music written specifically for the movie was mishandled. While the writing was good the *scoring* was bad. It was not applied to the film as seamlessly as it should have been. I was pretty disappointed. On the other hand, a lot of the songs that were used (mostly inappropriately with a couple of exceptions) were phenomenal and I'm looking forward to actually buying the soundtrack. Go figure.
2. The movie was criminally underfunded and it shows. A lot of its shortcomings probably stem from this low budget, but none more so than in the special effects and camera work. The cinematographer did mostly terrible work. Some of it was directorial, I admit, but it kind of seemed like the camera man couldn't pick a style and stick with it. It went to shaky hand held, to sweeping (but shaky low budget) fly arounds, to another style to yet another style... all within the space of one scene. It was distracting and amplified the cheese. Sad. You could see some of the scenes where they had actually spent a lot of their money, but unfortunately they were often overshadowed by the ones with bad special effects. Let me be clear! By bad, I certainly don't mean old school-- just, obvious CGI or something.
3. The most pivotal love scene in the movie, really a mishmash of a variety of scenes in the book was totally mishandled. Instead of the intense, poignant, sweet and sweeping scene it could have been it came off as sloppy and cheesy. The actors did what they could but this was clearly a directorial mistake. I was sad about that. A combination of bad blocking and bad camerawork really killed it.
4. A lot of stuff was overdone. I mean, did there really need to be a crazy effect when Bella touched Edwards ice-cold skin the first time? Wouldn't a recoil by the actress have been enough? A movie like this needs to achieve a balance of the magic of the Cullen family (the vampires!) and the ordinaryness of the humans. Sometimes that balance was thrown because of the little overdone parts.
Anywayyyy, moving on. Reasons I really, really enjoyed this film.
The obvious ones!
2. Gory, gory, gory love. Oh to be a teenager and to write stuff like this again! There's a purity and an innocence about this love story that few can actually craft once they've experienced the real ins and outs of love. It's this ideal we cling to-- it's written into fairytales and myths. It's no different here. A little grotesque at times... not gross... just fanciful, but oh so good. Like secret stash of Reeses Peanut Butter Cup good. The kind of good that you don't want to let people know that you're secretly enjoying oh so very much.
3. The casting was just terrific, especially with the bit parts which are often forgotten. The team of kids that played the supporting high schoolers played their roles with heart. They may be the most believable group of high schoolers I've seen on film in a while, at least in this kind of teen flick.
4. The handled the suspense well near the end. I wish they spent more time with it in a way, but the book doesn't, so why should they have? I wanted them to linger on the hunt a little longer. Still it was handled well.
5. Kristen Stewart as Bella is a brilliant, brilliant choice. People say the character isn't likeable and perhaps that's because we see a bit too much of what is going on in her head. The sad reality is that teenage girls everywhere think those same thoughts about completely fallible, normal, idiotic teenage boys. Sad really. I don't disqualify her because she has pathetically naive and needy tendencies. Anyway, well done, to her as well.
well, there is a monkeypants asleep in between myself and this laptop and it's getting increasingly awkward to share. Toodles my friends. Toodles.
0 comments:
Post a Comment