Movie Review: Twilight (2008)

You Better Hold On Tight, Spidermonkey

Arguably the best line in the movie, “You better hold on tight, spidermonkey,” says Edward as he climbs up the bark of a redwood with Bella on his back. And as they continue on through the forest, jumping, flying, arriving at high mast to overlook a scene of enormous, mountainous beauty, you would never guess that it was all CGI. These days, however, I’m beginning to accept that most of it is. See: Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, although Harry Potty is worse in that it’s overly colorful and horribly childish. It’s actually quite disturbing to find so many comparisons of Twilight to Potter, most presumably due to the furor engulfing followers of both. Is it too much to recognize the vast difference between the two? If I were part of the production of Twilight, I’d be pretty annoyed at America (although I can think of a kajillion other reasons to be annoyed at America, but that’s beside the point).

Fans of the book would be horrified at the adaptation on the screen. What is a clumsy, humorous protagonist character in the book is portrayed as sullen and lost, only to be found by her true vampire love (awe), which was probably what Melissa Rosenberg (screenwriter) wanted and Stephanie Meyer (novelist) hates. If you hadn’t read the book (and I hadn’t, sorry) then you might actually enjoy it far more (like i did).

The problems in the movie have nothing to do with acting or portrayal; nobody overdoes it, nobody falls short. Neither does any cinematography exhibit a lack of skill. The downfalls are found in the teeny-bopper, sexy soundtrack and the tag-line dialogue in the villains. This is a movie for 13 year old girls. And its overtones of sexuality are a little.. vague. My point being that if you’re going to go that route, why not go all the way and have some lesbian kissing? That way you’d reel in not just the girls but the boys too!



Alas, I’m glad you didn’t, because while the ridiculousness of the plot — girl is lonely, girl meets boy, boy is vampire, vampires are dangerous, girl learns the hard way.. and nothing has a logical explanation to it… maybe that’s what makes it good, that it’s a fantasy.

One of the most important concepts some filmmakers have trouble understanding is the color scheme of the storyboard. Twilight does not make this mistake. While it’s vivid, dreamy, and dark it’s also very colorful without losing faith in itself, a forest hue bundle that never fades. Another great example of this is Memento and, in fact, there’s some talk of it in the DVD extras. Ultimately, color-scheming is a marketing ploy and you can see the same scheme on the website for New Moon, although New Moon has a more sepia tone drawn in. Yet another example is The Illusionist. Come to think of it, the color scheme is exactly the same in the Illusionist.

Anyhoo, this is not an A1 movie. Neither is it bottom-of-the-barrel. The toughest part on the filmmakers must have been squeezing a 544 page book into a two hour movie, which is sort of long for teenagers. However, it reels in your inner teenage girl and doesn’t tire, even through the credits while Radiohead plays (scarily) and then moves to one of the worst Linkin Park songs I think I’ve ever heard.

This entry was posted on October 24, 2009 at 6:40 am and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.