Twilight: The Movie (a.k.a. Twi-Lite)

So our Netflix account somehow got us Twilight the day it came out (usually there's a wait for new movies) and I watched it the other night.

I'd have to say that they did an OK job with the movie version of the story. The movie has a general feel like some independent movies do, with a lot of artistic shots and long scenes of the Northwestern wilderness. Not that this is a bad thing, just very different from large budget box-office successes are these days.

But I call it Twi-Lite because it's light on the story. I realize that it's difficult to take a book of several hundred pages and boil it down to make a 2 hour movie. It's even more difficult when a large portion of said book consists of internal monologue. Short of having Bella talking over half of the movie, they had to leave out a lot. Also missing is the sense of time; Bella spends several months in school during the duration of the story (in the book) and we read of her coming and going from school frequently, which helps give the feel of time. Book vs. movie is like the difference between driving from Ohio to California or getting there by bullet train.

Stephanie Meyers also spends more time in the book developing Edward's "family." We get much more of a feel for the individual personae of Jasper, Alice, Emmett, Rosalie, Esme, and Dr. Carlisle Cullen. In the movie, they're almost reduced to glorified extras. I really hope those actors weren't paid by line.

Some of the characters just don't seem to match up with the book, while others do. This is most likely more of a product of individual imagination instead of the screenwriter's folly, but it left me feeling somewhat disappointed. Alice and Emmett, for example, are pretty much exactly how I imagined them. Rosalie (who spends most of the series hating Bella) is, in the book, sort of like a vampiric Barbie. She seems a little more "normal" in the movie. Jasper seems a little odd, and Esme seems to lack the grace and elegance for which she was known in the books. Jacob, Bella's werewolf friend, is fairly spot-on, but some of her other friends wind up being little more than stereotypical teen friends. There's the valley girl, the smart Asian (who is on the school paper...surprise, surprise) and the bashful guy who likes Bella. And Eric. They made Eric a Gaysian!!!

They did a pretty good job casting Edward. The actor portraying him does an excellent job with Edward's notable mood swings early on in the story. The actress who plays Bella, however, reminds me too strongly of a much younger Molly Shannon. Certain ways that she delivers lines or gives expressions just give me that impression. If you've already seen it, watch it again with that in mind, and see if it doesn't ring true. My only other problem with casting is the actor cast in the role of Carlisle Cullen. I pictured him as a slightly older man, perhaps mid-40's, with an air of experience and wisdom about him. This actor is probably mid-30's, and looks like the bastard offspring of Matthew McConaughey and Johnny Depp. While I'm sure that doesn't disappoint many of the female audience, he looks less like a 300+ year-old doctor and more like an extra from ER.

All in all, though, it's still pretty good. Had I gone to the theatre and watched it, I probably would have left feeling like I hadn't gotten my $8.50 worth, but watching it as a rental was fine. The wife has already said that she wants to own it, and I can't see anything bad about that either.

After watching it, I am more strongly convinced that my original impression of "My So-Called Life, Vampire Edition" rings true. It's a good rental, and beats the hell out of some of the crap on TV lately, but if you want a good vampire movie, watch (or re-watch) "Interview With A Vampire."

My opinion: 3 Wooden Stakes out of 5