BigSpoon’s Review
Ahh yes… Twilight. How do I begin? Let me start by saying that the movie was much better than I expected (being that I expected one of the worst experiences of my life). My trip to the theater began by me sulking and rolling my eyes back into my head over and over while LittleSpoon sat there with her ear-to-ear grin. While walking into the theater, I found myself trying to find things that could keep my attention for the next two hours and I found myself an extra large Dr. Pepper and a bag of sour patch kids. Ten minutes later (and $20 dollars later) we found ourselves getting ready for what I expected to be a real life nightmare. I obviously came into the movie with the worst expectations, but I want you to know that I came out pleasantly surprised. Not saying this was some fantastic film that everyone needs to run out and rent from your local Blockbuster or order from Netflix, but it was something that as a guy watching a high school heartthrob chick flick, I wasn’t terrified. I will agree with those that complain about some of the acting. I think Kristen Stewart (Bella in the film) will prove to be a strong actress in the future, but for now I find that she is overly dramatic and is going to get her self caught in type casted roles for the rest of her life if she’s not careful. Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen) played the part of an awkward vampire strangely well in my opinion. My biggest complaint and largest fear for this franchise is Taylor Lautner (Jacob). His part in the film was horrid. I think the downfall of some of the more interesting scenes were because of him. I know LittleSpoon has faith that he will prove to be worth something in the next films but I honestly just don’t see it. Now I won’t go in too deep about the movie because I am positive LittleSpoon is dying to explain every detail with you. I will apologize if it seems like I am picking on her for this. She loved the books, and honestly I have been thinking about reading them now, also. Good portions of my friends have actually read the series now and are yelling at me to go read them. Maybe I will at some point, we’ll see! I am a freak for the fantasy world, especially with some of my personal addictions (i.e. World Of Warcraft), so I find this story intriguing. I have high hopes for the second film because I am very interested in the whole vampire/werewolf thing, and the author’s rendition on vampire lore is pretty cool. Let me also apologize for giving this movie a two spoon rating. It was really hard for me to decide between 2 and 3. Problem is I didn’t like it enough to give it a three, but I didn’t dislike it enough to give it a two. The movie has some super entertaining scenes. I love the baseball scene, and the scene in the meadow was cool…until the sparklies. In the end, the movie was decent for being something I originally had no interest in, I just hope that they manage to have larger budgets for the next films. I feel as if that may have been part of the hold up on this film as well.
LittleSpoon’s Review
I was introduced to the Twilight series of books this past summer when I reluctantly ordered the first one off of Amazon after hearing multiple rave reviews from my friends. I was pretty skeptical that it would be a little too young adult for the love story to actually resonate with me. In reality, I ended up falling in love with the book (and staying up until 3 AM reading it in one sitting) and then acquiring the other three books as quickly as possible.
Because it is my favorite in the series, I obviously had HUGE expectations for the movie adaptation of the first book, Twilight. One of the greatest things about the book is the author’s ability to write so accurately about what it feels like to be in love with another person. The emotions experienced by the heroine, Bella Swan, in regards to her vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen, are easy to relate to, especially if the reader has been or is in love. Therefore, it was key that the chemistry between the two actors chosen to play Bella and Edward (Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson) be strong. As an audience member, I wanted to fall in love with Edward Cullen along with Bella all over again and I think that the movie achieved this to some extent. Because of time constraints, they couldn’t spend as long developing Edward and Bella’s relationship, so if you haven’t experienced through the book, it might look a lot more like puppy love than destiny. However, I think that the choices of the actors and the interaction they do have together is spot-on. Again though, without reading the book, you might not appreciate Bella’s introverted tendencies and slight awkwardness and pass it off as bad acting by Kristen Stewart.
Also important to the success of the movie in my eyes was that fact that I, like many other fans, had specific scenes from the book that I wanted to see brought to life. Specific examples included the blood-typing scene, the visit to LaPush beach, the meadow scene, visiting with Edward’s family and the baseball scene. While I understand that movies cannot perfectly adapt a novel (unless they are 8 hours long a la BBC’s Pride and Prejudice), these are moments in the book that stand out to almost everyone who reads it, so I thought the movie adaptation of these scenes should be as close as possible to what Stephenie Meyer wrote. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed with most of them. They got the idea across, but I didn’t feel the same enthusiasm as I did for the book’s versions. For one, blood-typing was not even in the movie. The LaPush scene was great—I love that they added surfing—but Jacob’s part was poorly written and poorly executed. I hope he matures a lot more before New Moon. The meadow scene was nothing close to the romantic, magical day described by the author, although after watching the commentary I realize this may have been a result of budgetary and shooting location difficulties. It still served its purpose, though, in showing the moment when Bella and Edward truly fall in love and admit it to one another. Finally, I have no complaints about the scenes in which Bella meets Edward’s family and the baseball scene. The baseball scene especially was fun and sexy—exactly how I imagined it.
Despite my griping about certain aspects of the character development or the way they interpreted certain scenes, I really did enjoy this movie. I realize that this is an interpretation of the novel and I appreciate that they added more humor to the dialogue and diversity to Bella’s friends. However, my number one piece of advice (and yes, it is what everyone says): READ THE BOOKS, too! The supporting cast (Charlie, the “bad” vampires—James, Victoria and Laurent, the Cullen family, Bella’s friends) was excellent and I am excited to see them developed further in the remaining films. The music (both composed and chosen) for the film is great and perfectly captured the mood of the story. I admit that I was completely entranced by this movie and I think that with a little better directing, perhaps a bit more eloquent script, and a bigger budget, the next installment in the Twilight film series will be twice as good.
