 |
| Directed By: |
| Catherine Hardwicke |
| Starring: |
| Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke |
Interview with a Vampire (1994) meets Romeo and Juliet
Follow the exploits of Bella and Edward, two fictionally perfect tweens with names to match as they over-dramatize vampire abstinence. That is, until the bad vampires show up to make trouble for our idealistic couple. Sally through every young girl’s secret fantasies and rarely disclosed fears with paint-by-numbers story-telling and insignificant characters. By the end you will either write a poem or burn your diary.
Bella’s first day of school Edward gets a good whiff of her and has to hold back from blowing chunks all over his lab table.
Edward takes Bella on a piggyback ride to the top of the world to show her his true appearance—sparkly. They actually look like the mountain climber game from The Price is Right.
"It was a dark and stormy night. We sat quietly in the dark, cool common area, staring glassy-eyed into the screen. Every second—hours; every minute—days. I looked over to my company, moving from one to the other, silently gambling with myself on who would be the first to act.
I looked to my wife. She had arranged herself on the dirty, worn carpet like a child anticipating cartoons on Saturday morning. Shimmering colors radiating from the chaos before her eyes danced on her milky skin.
Then, the hunger…
Desire for Apple Jacks swelled in me like a waking volcano. I craned my head to the dark shapes filling the kitchen just a few feet away. I started to ponder the consequences. Some so horrible they sickened my already uneasy stomach. I turned back to the screen. What would I miss? What if the light from the fridge disrupted the spell cast over my three companions? Or worse…oh, GOD…what if there was no milk?
I had no time to despair however, as fate played my hand. My wife’s cousin, with insatiable ferocity, impatiently threw her powerful finger to the soft rubber buttons. And just like that, the trailers were skipped…the movie was starting."
While I consider myself one of the last people qualified to critique young-adult fiction adaptations, I have come to understand the gentle and sometimes not so gentle sways of pop-culture phenomena. Twilight is one of those sneaky bastards that creeps up behind unawares parents and steals their hard-earned cash through the sparkly doe eyes of their 14-year-old daughters. I mean I can’t think of a better role model for budding youngsters than a self-victimizing teenage girl begging for vampire love.
Yet whatever emotional dynamic Twilight the novel has to woo the allegiance of giddy adolescent girls I could not find a speck of it in the movie. In fact the movie feels like CliffsNotes on what must be a Shakespearean epic—without the tragedy. It lacks spectacle, passion, drama, sex…it could be the perfect kids movie if the main character wasn’t so committed to offing herself via hunky neck chomping. Oh, now I get it.
The film opens with our heroine Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), transplanted from sunny Arizona to the cold, wet foliage of Forks, Washington to live with her estranged father Charlie (Billy Burke); conveniently the town’s likable sheriff. Arriving smack in the middle of the school year Bella spends about 13 seconds struggling to adopt friends before falling in with a troupe of eclectics. It’s not long before they’re like pees and carrots and Bella gets the old lunchroom tour.
Enter the Cullens, incestuous children of the night whenever; somehow embodying both the rich socialite and the estranged recluse sects of the school’s social dynamic. Names and gossip briefs accompany each in pairs as they parade by in slow motion, with catwalk gaits and abnormally fashionable clothing—like prom in the Hamptons. The last of course being Edward (Robert Pattinson), the unattainable beefcake with smoldering eyes Bella will obsess herself with for the rest of her life. And so, drama ensues.
Bella shows up to one of Edward‘s classes where he immediately gags and runs from the room; Beginning a tag-like game of love/hate between the two that fuels their fairytale fascination with each other and is the overall theme of the story. And by fascination I mean that Bella is a juicy steak for a starving hobo insomniac. Meanwhile, vampires are killing townsfolk and the local Indian tribe is telling tall tales of werewolves, and no one cares. The plot softens.
I can’t ruin the story because frankly there isn’t a whole lot of story to ruin. I understand it’s every gal’s secret desire to meet a tall, pale, and broody 17-year-old who wants to drink her life essence like Country Time Lemonade in the summertime, it’s only human nature. However, Edward Cullen is pretty menacing, and not the misunderstood kind. With his constant scowling and obvious craving to eat Bella it makes no sense to me why she would find him any kind of charming.
Imagine the perfect killing machine with no natural predators, practically unkillable except by one of his kind. Now give him the extra ability to read minds and conversations that include how your very smell sends him into an uncontrollable blood frenzy. He never sleeps, only thinks about feeding, and hates the beach—especially long walks on the beach. When you're 53 he'll still look 17 and he feels like a fresh trout pulled from a lake. That, my friends, is amore.
I’m positive that Bella would steer clear of a dangerous looking biker or an axe murderer, let alone a guy with an insatiable thirst for human blood. She doesn’t fair so well against a few drunken frat boys, what chance does she have against a kid who can run down deer? Then again I can’t stay away from the other kind of bloodsuckers, namely strippers, so to be fair, I’ll bite. I’ve seen From Dusk Til Dawn (1996), I know what goes down at the Titty Twister.
Regardless of its ridiculous premise Twilight lacks many of the things that make a hybrid genre flick of this sort compelling. It’s not all that romantic and certainly not scary. With glossed over character development limited to standard teen flick personality quirks and one-liners it’s difficult to latch on. By the time the “villains” show up in the 3rd act there is no good reason to care whether or not anyone dies, or if Bella and Edward finally realize their morbid curiosities. Luckily there is a not-so-ominous ending tacked on to keep us on the lookout for a sequel.
Between the shoddy acting and total lack of chemistry it’s impossible for me to take Twilight seriously as high romance or even middling vampire fiction. But for an overproduced, underwhelming fan film Twilight still manages to do exactly what it is meant to; entertain millions of screaming teenage girls and their moms with naive fantasies of everlasting courtship. The fact that I found Twilight to be a marginally entertaining, albeit forgettable flick doesn’t really matter. What does matter is what its fans think. And so far they like it.
A couple of guys are vampire food (not shown), Bella gets a bite, a broken leg, and a piece of glass in the thigh. A vampire gets his head ripped off and is burned (not shown directly).
Kristen Sterwart in her usual teeny-tiny little panties. Less man flesh than I expected—as in none.
Stephanie Meyer’s version of vampire lore keeps all of the advantages of vampirism without any of its traditional weaknesses; essentially immortality and power without consequence. I don’t really see any reason not to turn every brilliant minded person in the world into a vampire, and then eat the rest. There would be no reason for money or war or religion, or even procreation. Maybe keep a colony of humans around in case we want to replace a person or two. Boredom would be the new Cancer. Doesn’t that sound horrible?
Note to self: If ripping off classic literature, leave sex and tragedy. Also don’t hire friends.