Friday, November 21, 2008

Don't judge a book by it's movie


Yes, I went to see Twilight this morning with Amy and another friend, Carolyn. We had been planning to take today off to go see Twilight, and even bought our tickets a few weeks ago. As our schedules recently opened up considerably, we made a morning of it!

I must admit that I was a little underwhelmed.

If you have not seen the movie yet and want to, then stop reading if you want to avoid a few spoilers (not that the storyline will be much of a surprise). Now, I recognize that book to movie transitions require a lot of changes, but I still have a few issues with the movie:
- Edward and the Cullens were not as reserved, inconspicuous, and distant as I was expecting.
- Bella managed to maintain a monotone for the entire movie.
- Jasper looked crazy, and not crazy-good.
- The infamous meadow scene was more awkward than it was romantical.
- They skipped the line-up of all three guys trying to ask Bella to the Spring dance, though it would have been easy and fun to include.
- The Cullens in the movie have strangely taken to the trees. Edward even calls Bella his "little spider monkey" and tells her to hang on while he leaps through the trees with her.
- Edward needs to work on his snarly angry face.
- The film came off as a bit low-budget, and kinda clunky... It felt like they didn't nail down the transitions and in-between scenes well enough.
- Much cheesiness occurred.

On the plus side:
- I LOVED the guy that played Charlie (Billy Burke). He might have been the best actor in the whole flick!
- Taylor Lautner (aka Jacob) mostly redeemed himself from his Shark Boy role. And should grow into a pretty good Jacob for any future films.
- The chemisty between Bella and Edward was pretty decent, which was a key redeeming quality for the movie.
- Robert Pattinson is still good-looking. And since I'd already gotten used to the idea of him as Edward, I could just enjoy the view.
- They did include a couple of funny clumsy-Bella moments.

I will admit that I unintentionally went in with higher expectations. I usually try to go in with really low expectation for movies of books that I love. I wonder if a second viewing would improve my level of satisfaction... Hmm. I might have to give it a try.

With any luck, they'll get a new director and screenwriter for the future films. The material from the books is good. They just need to figure out a way to edit it down to fit the time frame of a feature film... I'm available to help out, if they're short on staff! :)


Who else has seen Twilight? And what did you think? Am I being too critical, or no?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen it but have read reviews that echoed your thoughts. HOWEVER, Tracy took ten teenage girls to the midnight show (on a school night no less). They had a great time. What a super mom Tracy is!

JMadd said...

Well, I liked it, but it seemd really low budget to me. Could they have made Carlisle seem more pale? It looked like they threw flour on his face. They definitely need a better make-up artist next time. I hated Edward's lip gloss!

YMA said...

I'm almost ashamed to confess that I've now seen it....twice! I agree with your review pretty much to a tee. It was really awkward in some parts and Bella's hesitant half sentences did get annoying but she and Edward did show a great chemistry and that's what we love!