The Twilight Theatrical Trial
This review of my Twilight experience was been planned for a long time, and isn’t quite as relevant now. The weekend after release night, I and handful of brave II members (Lord Snow, Elanor, Jeni, and Eccentric Iconoclast) embarked on a movie going experience that would cost us the following:
- Ten US dollars
- 122 minutes
- Our dignity as humans
- A sizeable portion of our souls
Had I been an enemy combatant, the Geneva Convention would also have been violated on that night. There was no line when Lord Snow and I arrived at the theater, so getting our tickets was easy. I had to hide a laugh in a cough when I asked the girl at the ticket counter for a ticket to Twilight. She probably wasn’t judging me, but it was an embarrassing situation nonetheless.
I had expected huge lines, so we ended up arriving about an hour early. I felt slightly ridiculous to be a Twilight hater who showed up earlier than the fans to get tickets, so we went over to the Borders to look around and link up with the rest of our group. I was amused to see Twilight and Inheritance placed side by side—bookstores know their demographics.
When we finally entered the theater it was packed. We sat in the third row from the front, which is just next to eyestrain aisle. Lord Snow and I weren’t the only Y chromosomes in the theater, I’m quite sad to report. Along with the chaperoning fathers, there were also some single guys. I’m going to posit a correlation between watching Twilight by yourself and being single. I think even girls who like Twilight know there is something off about a guy who likes Twilight. Just throwing it out there. Obviously the largest demographic was middle class teenage females—a corporate marketing agent’s fantasy come true.
The audience was actually fairly quiet, not at all like the screaming masses I heard of elsewhere. Probably Minnesota Nice kept the crowd more or less sane. I love Minnesota. There was only mild screaming when Edward first came on screen, and not a lot of that “take it off, hottie!” nonsense. Granted, most of the screaming actually came when the Half-Blood Prince trailer aired, and Daniel Radcliffe in all his robed glory appeared. Make of that what you will.
The hottie, of course, was Robert Pattinson. They couldn’t possibly have been referring to Kristen Stewart, because the make-up department spent extra time making her look as unattractive as possible, and the costume department did its part too. Now, it was my understanding that in a Hollywood movie if you aren’t sexy you had better be good at acting, and sometimes they even expect both. To call Kristen Stewart an actress is an insult to the many actresses who can do facial expression. Stewart looked perpetually bored. Maybe she was trying to read the book while the movie was being filmed. Occasionally she would use her facial muscles to tug slightly at the edges of her lips, in what some of us call “a smile”. This was evidently the cause of much distress, given the expression of pain in her eyes. It didn’t help, however, that she barely closed her mouth throughout the entire movie. Presumably she was so dazzled by Edward’s amazing sparkle, she forgot she had jaw muscles. It’s possible Kristen was just too embarrassed to be in the movie to really try and act. After all, she was given some of the worst source material in existence, and the script writing didn’t drastically improve on the writing.
I’m inclined not to forget Kristen, because her cast mate Robert Pattinson did so much better on all levels. Especially since his unstated goal was to ruin the movie. Some choice quotes of his include, “I read the book and was like ‘Well this is really dumb, I’ll never ever… This is so pointless going up for the role.’” and also “And the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that’s how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he’s a 108 year-old virgin so he’s obviously got some issues there”. Because I knew he was trying to destroy the movie from the inside out, I was much more sympathetic to Pattinson’s struggles with the script. Unlike Stewart, he actually attempted to inject some life and even some humor into the delivery, even as he loathed the entire experience. Pattinson was probably given even more embarrassing lines than Kristen. Some little nuggets of diarrhea include, “I like watching you sleep”, a line which Kitty mocked much better than I ever could; and also, “You are exactly my brand of heroin”, said in a nicely angst-filled voice. The script writers might have drawn inspiration for its remarkable romance from the Star Wars prequel trilogy, another series renown for its amazingly well written romance. If the romance in Star Wars can be summed up as “Padme, I hate sand. You aren’t like sand. So I love you”, then the romance in Twilight could be summed up as “Bella, I love heroin. You are like heroin. So I love you”. Stunning, really. Beyond that, the script writings forgot to mention anything Edward could possibly have seen in Bella. Not even any redeeming qualities, to make up for her being clingy, whiny, shallow.
When producing the Twilight movie everyone seemed to have forgotten chemistry, that vital little thing that makes romance tick. It was absolutely nowhere to be seen in Twilight. Pattinson seemed about as happy to be kissing Stewart as he would be about kissing a dead possum, and for her part Stewart simply looked bored. Pattinson was still the more dynamic of the two, and at times it even seemed like he wasn’t utterly revolted at the concept of Stewart. Seriously though, they spent a sizeable portion of the movie gazing into each other’s eyes, and yet, I still didn’t get the impression these were two people who loved each other and wanted to be together forever. Or even that they were two people mildly sexually interested in each other and wanted to have a one night stand. The closest they ever came was a wonderful scene in a meadow right after Edward has revealed his sparkliness to her, and they gaze soulfully into each others’ eyes while the camera circles around them. Just like in all those trashy romance movies.
Part of the problem was that the camera was zoomed SO FREAKING CLOSE. Stewart hasn’t really mastered the art of nuanced facial expression, so a close zoom on her face is about as expressive as faded wallpaper. You know how 80% of communication comes from body language? Well, that assuredly isn’t true, but the fact is, a lot of communication is through body language. And when the camera is zoomed so far in you can’t see bodies, so you don’t see any body language. Had there been some body language, maybe we would have felt a bit of the sexual tension. If she is wrapping her legs around him, and pressing her pelvis into him, then we would get the picture. But not from zooming in on the faces. (Of course, had they been more racy, then parents would have thrown a fit. Which just goes to show what an enormous pander this movie was.)
Oh, the romance. So yeah, that was bad. What else is there in the plot of Twilight? Well, some other stuff, I suppose. The pacing is entirely wrong. It’s slower than a dead whale on land, but that should only be expected—after all, they were trying to condense a tedious and self-indulgent teenage diary into a two hour film. Let’s take a moment and take a quiz. What was the one thing you knew about the movie before you went to see it? That it was about vampires? That Edward was a vampire? Yeah. If it wasn’t already perfectly obvious from the trailer (subtlety is not a strong point of this film), then most likely some breathy teenage Twihard told you while ejaculating about how great Edward was. So why then, does the movie spend an entire hour discovering Edward is a vampire? A terrible script is the only explanation I can come up with, as this was one of the densest decisions I’ve watched in film for quite some time. For an entire hour you get to watch the stupid and vacuous version of high school Bella attends. This is boring. So much time is wasted in the slow beginning that the male audience has lost interest by the time things start occurring (and the movie jumps the shark). By comparison, the ending seems rushed. After the revelation at the half way mark that Edward is a vampire, everything starts happening in fast-forward. Just fast enough that the ridiculous gaps in logic fly by before you can notice.
Yeah, the plot is pretty bad, and slow. But that’s not the only thing that goes into making a good movie, right? Atmosphere and setting can do a great deal to improve a movie. So what’s the setting like? Well, for one thing, vampires are pussies.
Probably all of you are already aware of the numerous ways the vampire myth has been raped in Twilight. Vampires aren’t allergic to garlic, silver doesn’t burn them, crosses don’t repel them, running water doesn’t repulse them, their reflections show up in mirrors, sunlight doesn’t disintegrate them. What does sunlight do? Actually, it’s nearly as bad in Twilight. It brings on a bout of embarrassingly bad CGI, along with a lovely background accompaniment of tingtingting. (Because Edward’s sparkles are so cool, they even make tinkling noises.) So bad that it prompts a deep shame in Edward, so he’ll never want to appear in light. The point is, these “vampires” are hardly vampires at all. They are closer to Greek gods with an occasional penchant for blood (which compared to Zeus’s remarkable diet for pretty women is perfectly acceptable), except that the Greek gods had flaws. Edward should have been Dionysus with blood in place of wine; instead, he became Apollo, without the jealous rages.
What is the problem with this though? Shouldn’t we encourage authors to break out of the cliché, to reinvent and reimagine, to expose us to new realms and adventures? Well, sure, but don’t go calling something what it’s not. If I invented a murderous race of midget men who burrow into your chest as you sleep and eat your heart whole, I don’t go calling them elves. Why not? Because elves, like vampires, are a fantastic race with existing connotations. These things have definitions and traditions; they aren’t yours to use as a label for just anything you think of. Sure, you can create a nice play off a race, and get away with calling it with the original name, but when you reach the point where your idea is no longer the original concept, you know you’ve made a mistake.
Stephanie Meyer admitted to having no awareness of the existing myths surrounding the vampire, which is a stunning example of poor research. Had she even taken the step of Googling vampire as her “protagonist” Bella does, she could have glimpsed the vast mythos surrounding the vampire. Instead, she probably read some Anne Rice novels, which are already a road to hell. I have no doubt in my mind that Stephanie Meyer did not read Dracula before beginning her series. Her use of the vampire is entirely irreverent.
Using an existing word for a new concept dilutes the meaning of word, and confuses the idea of your own concept. Doubtless lots of people went to see Twilight expecting to see a vampire movie. I can only imagine that the surprise was unpleasant. That wasn’t a vampire movie, of course not. At worst, this is false advertising, at best this is an act of ignorance. I’m grateful Stephanie Meyer did not attempt to create a race of dwarves—tall handsome men with well maintained facial hair and no fondness for alcohol.
As a consequence of the impotent conception of the vampire comes a distinct lack of atmosphere. Twilight is not a scary movie. When a vampire seems more content to gently nuzzle your throat instead of eviscerating it, you begin to get comfortable. There is not a moment in the movie where you feel like Bella is threatened, even assuming you thought of Bella as a sympathetic character. The trailer tries to play up the “action-filled” parts of the movie, to try and trick hapless males into the watching the film. In doing so, they accidentally included every scene involving action in that entire movie. The trailer is an infinitely scarier piece of cinematography than the actual movie. Every potentially scary situation that was displayed in the trailer is infinitely diffused by a ridiculous display of vampire power that renders the threat nonexistent. Thus the “horror” designation on this Horror/Action/Romance movie seems misappropriated. Same goes for the “action” designation.
It’s also hard to take seriously the atmosphere of the movie when it is saturated with a ridiculous amount of product placement. Apple, BMW, Chevy, Google, Rainier, Volvo, etc. I can’t tell if they thought this was a genuinely good idea, or if it was a cynical attempt at marketing to a much sought after demographic, but either way it was a complete mood killer.
None of this is helped by the backdrop provided for this movie. The sleepy Pacific Northwest is beautiful in film, but it has a soporific quality. This isn’t a flaw in of itself, but it compounds some other problems this movie has. The only time it was put to good use was with the tree climbing scene, but that was ruined by drunken camera work. It’s one thing to do a panoramic sweep of the landscape, it’s quite another to orbit around like a crack-addicted honeybee.
And now I’ve completely lost my train of thought, so I’ll talk about some visual aspects of the film.
Well, the “special” effects were pretty terrible. Every time a vampire jumped they did so in a parabola, so neatly arced that you could plot it in algebra class. That they were swinging on wires was painfully obvious. It wasn’t helped by the cheesy motion blur effect that the vampires had when running, which was stolen directly out of Queen of the Damned (which is just fitting, considering Anne Rice had to have inspired Stephanie Meyer). Not to mention the whoosh ing sound they made as they jumped.
All of this combined to make the baseball scene one of the stupidest moments in all of cinema. The Minnesota Nice finally wore off around here, when we were laughing our asses off in the theater. Some grown woman snapped and screamed, “Would you quit it with your annoying laugh!” in about the bitchiest voice possible. Of course, she wasn’t yelling at me, because my laughter doesn’t sound annoying—must have been one of you other people, to be sure. The entire scene can be summarized like this: everyone sets up ridiculously quickly, Bella pretends to act, Alice pitches (sexy), Rosalie hits the ball, Edward runs, moment of drama, Alice pitches (sexy), Carlisle hits the ball, Edward and Hunky Dude collide, Alice pitches (sexy), Jasper hits the ball, Hunky Dude jumps, Biker Dudes show up. They hit the ball the same way every single time. Super interesting. And they didn’t keep track of score, or show who was on what base, so it’s not like there was any reason to be interested in the game itself. It was simply there to show off the might of the vampires, and introduce CONFLICT. Conflict with ridiculous looking biker dudes, that is. Twilight, like any self respecting film, makes its villains look like utter retards, which makes us really scared of them, or something.
Not that James was the only person who looked silly. They all did. The Cullen family looked like a group of A&F models dropped into flour. Which was probably all the effort the make up department put into it. Additionally, Bella looks pale enough to be a vampire already, which is just hunky-dory. The sparkles…were terrible. When Edward went out into the sun to show Bella what a monstrosity he was there was another round of laughter from our ultra-conspicuous row. That was probably the worse CGI I have ever seen in my entire life, including while I was in a first year computer modeling class. Someone must have just taken a photoshop sparkle brush and applied it to Edward, because that’s what it looked like. The sparkles were so small and close together it looked like Edward had a layer of white fur—utterly ridiculous. And that scene was the dream that inspired the book, I kid you not.
In summary, the entire thing was one massive collage of fail and stupid. If you are going to see this movie make sure you see it with a friend. Also make sure that either the friend pays, or the friend puts out. Otherwise it is unacceptable to be caught watching this movie.
I’ll leave you with a video of Kristen Stewart at her incoherent babbling finest.
By Kitty
on Jan 2, 12:28 AM