Film Review - Twilight

Twilight (12a)

 

Dir. Catherine Hardwicke (last two films: The Nativity, Lords of Dogtown)

 

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

           

Here’s something for those looking to get their teeth into an alternative teen angst relationship drama… Cribbed from Stephenie Meyer’s distinctly girly novel that takes on the live and loves of an impossibly good looking vampire Twilight oozes cool but lacks enough action or drama to make it worth more than a passing glance.

Director Catherine ‘Lords of Dogtown’ Hardwicke follows up her big screen depiction of the birth of Christ in The Nativity with a less festive tale of teenage love with a twist – one of the teenagers has been seventeen for over a hundred years!

Unfortunately it’s not as exciting as it sounds, Kristen Stewart plays Bella Swan, a love struck new girl in town who falls head over heels for goth looking Edward Cullen (Robert ‘Cedric from Harry Potter’ Pattinson). And erm, that’s about it really… Will it be love at first bite? Or is it just a pain in the neck?

My son Luke (now 11) said that he enjoyed the brief action scene towards the end where Cullen has to battle a much more evil vampire, but that the rest of the film left him cold. I can relate because  even the hand to hand combat between two super strong immortal creatures is a bit weak and over before it really has chance to raise the pulse rate. There’s a fun quidditch like game of vampire baseball at one point too but again it’s a blink and you’ll miss it few moments of light relief.

Most of the film is spent watching the two leads staring at each other, she can’t resist his vampire wiles despite his moody protestations that ‘you have to leave me alone or I’m liable to bite you’.  In fact it is Edward's repression of his bloodlust that forms most of the plot – a lumbering analogy for teen carnal impulses… Will he let his guard down and tuck into his new girlfriend or keep his fangs to himself and set up a lucrative sequel… take a wild guess… And is it just me or isn’t it a bit wrong for a guy who might look seventeen but is actually a very old man to be chasing such a young teenage girl?

Twilight has already been a pretty big hit in the States and has a series of novels to keep the films coming; I can only hope that they get more exciting as the go on.

Kristen Stewart - obvious vampire bait!

Arbitrary final rating: öööööö (6)