Twilight (2008)

The other day I referred to Twilight as Twi-shite, I can’t remember why; but my wife quickly pointed out that I couldn’t really comment because I’d never seen any of the films. Quite correct. I have never had the slightest inclination to read or see the series at all; so when it was on Film4 I decided, in the interests of science, that I should watch it.

Now, I am far more of a Kate Beckinsale in tight black trousers, Badass Bill Nighty Vampire vs Michael Sheen Werewolf kind of a guy, or perhaps Dog Soldiers; so it hardly broke my heart that my impression of Twilight was “Meh”. Actually I enjoyed it more than I expected (I expected to fall asleep), but after the first half of teeny high school crap I found that I actually wanted to know what happened at the end! Don’t get me wrong, I only found it interesting in the same way as a snail crawling up your window, but interesting none the less!

Like I say, I have no interest in ever reading any of the books, but I do feel that the story might work better as a book. Clearly the main focus is the developing relationship between Bella and Edward, but the way it was done was not nearly interesting enough to be a film. At high school I kept expecting Christian Slater and Winona Ryder to be sat in the corner of the canteen, and when we finally got to the vampire stuff (Bella was extremely calm and accepting of this), it was quite comical to see Edward scampering up trees and leaping between them like a lumberjack on speed.

Speaking of Bella and Edward, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were both OK, but both were trying too hard to be moody and intense to be realistic teenagers or interesting; Pattinson in particular, he clearly had really heavy eyebrows leading him to permanently scowl. Some of the wide landscape shots were really nice though, but otherwise I think Catherine Hardwicke's direction was fairly aimless and uninspiring. I think that’s all I have to say on the subject; other than I probably wont see any of the other films.