Twilight - Cinema Review

'if you’re going to attempt to turn your young lead into The Next Big Thing in a major leading role give him something a bit cooler than a Volvo to drive'

I will admit at the start of this review that I was apprehensive to say the least before the opening credits of Twilight rolled. I didn’t know much about the books other than they were aimed at teenage girls and what I’d seen in the trailers hadn’t blown my socks off. However, The Mrs (who is older than teenage and should know better) had read the books, loved them and wanted to go, so along I was dragged on a wintery night that was chillier than your average Monday in Forks.

Now I don’t claim to be a vampire expert but way back when in my University days (all of 2 years ago now) I did my final year dissertation on horror in fiction and film and how it impacted popular culture and/or vice versa (or something similar, I’m struggling to remember the exact title). As such I can honestly say that in all my vampire watching days I have never met a group of more unthreatening, un-scary and frankly unimaginative vampires than those that populate Twilight.

Of course, this is largely not the point of the film which is ostensibly an unrequited love tale rather than anything approaching horror. However, it still grated a significant amount to see certain parts of the mythos (sunlight in particular) destroyed and ignored to better further a bit of wishy-washy teenage love.

And this is my real problem with Twilight as a whole; it is completely wishy-washy, un-committal and un-thrilling in almost every regard. The performances all appear half-arsed and half-completed (Robert Pattinson is particularly week and completely out of depth fronting a major studio blockbuster), the dialogue (apparently) is taken almost word for word from the book and actually doesn’t make sense at some points (the scene in the hospital ward at the end) and the story as a whole just doesn’t stack up as something which stands on its own two feet as a feature film.

As mentioned at the start, I’m sure part of the reason I didn’t enjoy the film is because, in the words of a great double-team, ‘I’m too old for this shit’, but I’m also sure that part of the reason behind it is that Twilight really is a poorly made film. Taking dialogue directly from the book is plain lazy and never works and implanting grand cinematography and soaring vistas doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t add anything to the film as a whole. And for God’s sake, if you’re going to attempt to turn your young lead into The Next Big Thing in a major leading role give him something a bit cooler than a Volvo to drive!