Twilight Review

On November 21st at around... oh say... 12:20ish in the am. is when millions of adolescent women first swooned over Edward Cullen's dramatic slow-mo entrance into the Forks High cafeteria.

hold up...

okay... sorry i had to roll my eyes so much i had to stop typing...

My friend Kerry sat next to me, and when this scene hit the screen and when everyone with a vagina gasped and squealed at Ed's entrance, he turned to me and said "who the fuck is that?"

I first heard about the Twilight Universe this summer during Comic-con when it got a short preview of the upcoming movie. And I am gonna be completely honest, It looked like a movie i would wait to see on DVD. I would put it on my Netflix list, wait a month or so to cycle through, get it in the mail and say "oh yeah... i put this on the list," wait about a week before finally watching it just so i could send it back to get whatever was coming next.

After seeing it in theaters, I would have preferred that. At least then I could have played Warcraft while it was on.

So far, this is pretty harsh. Twilight was not a bad movie. it was good, but its not my type of movie. So why did I see this film at the midnight showing?

my girlfriend loves vampires...

I think she discovered Twilight around the same time I did. But where i shrugged it off, she breathed deep and inhaled the drug that is the Twilight fad. Before I knew it, she bought all four books and read them in two weeks. she watched all the trailers, clips and making-ofs that you could find on the web. she was all about it.

And the girls she works with didn't help either, they only fed the flames. When i could only say "that's cool" when she would bring it up, when she was at work they would all be like "blah blah twilight blah blah edward blah blah.." (cuz that's how silly girls talk)

I don't get the Vampire thing.. and I am not going to try to understand or describe it. But the South Park the other night seemed to portray it pretty well. If you haven't seen it, check it out here: http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/1214/

Anyway, back to the movie review. I didn't know the story going into the movie, but apparently, it was pretty close to the book, minus small details like every book movie. It was a decent story, no hidden elements or twist, just straight forward girls meets guy in high school and falls in love. oh but he's a Vampire. That's pretty much the story. (my girlfriend will argue because i "didn't read the books") but i am not reviewing the books here.

Where the movie starts making me complain is where the special effects come in. The movie is not about special effects. Its not like Harry Potter where the movie's enticement is magic. the main theme in Twilight is Love (or whatever) So... i guess if they wanted to focus on the story and the love theme... i guess special effects is an area they could just give a once over... i guess.

but I went to school for this stuff and sometimes, the special effects make or break a movie. when i see Edward jump twenty five feet in the air I want to think "wow.. he's jumping pretty high" but what i thought was "wheres the wire?" When i see him put Bella on his back and climb a giant pine, i want to think "wow...he's climbing that tree pretty fast" but what i thought was "that had to be scary for the double to get hoisted up next to that tree while he makes a climbing motion with his hands and feet"

You loose so much of the reality when movies use wires because it looks like a guy on wire! I had to ask Kristen on the way home "do these vampires fly?" because that's what it looked like to me. instead of jumping, they looked like they were flying. and its because of those stupid wires.

Another special effect that looked silly was the blur motion on the Edward's fast running. I expect that from Smallville, but not from a major motion picture.

there was a non special effect that upset me too. it was a scene where one of the bad Vampires was deliberately leading a group of trackers away to fool them. To do this she stepped in a mound of dirt to leave her footprint. As if that wasn't cliche enough, the mound of dirt that she stepped in was literally that, a mound of top soil in a pretty perfect shape in the middle of a stone path. they must have been low on the budget at that point where they couldn't make a small environment that would hold a footprint, they could only use a shovel full of dirt. And it wasn't even dirt you dig up.. it was dirt you can buy...it didn't look right at all.

the movie as a whole was better then i thought it would be. there was a scene that i thought was the movie's strongest, and that the the baseball scene. The vampire family likes to play baseball but they have to do it during a thunderstorm because they hit the ball so hard and strong that it makes a loud crack they have to cover with thunder. it did have some crappy effects, but it was well shot and edited. (until the bad vampires showed up and they hissed at each other...)

If you're a fan of the books.. you've probably already seen the movie, But if you haven't, you will love this movie. If you like love stories and vampires, you will love this movie. But if not... just wait to put in on your Netflix list so you can play Warcraft while you watch.