Twilight review

Isabella Swan: Will you tell me the truth? 
Edward Cullen: No, probably not. 
Edward Cullen: I'd rather hear your theories. 
Isabella Swan: I have considered radioactive spiders and kryptonite. 
Edward Cullen: All superhero stuff right? But what if I'm not the hero? What if I am the bad guy? 

Director: Catherine Hardwicke
(2008)

It’s hard to go into a popular and commercially successful film with an open mind. After legions of teenage girls call it the ‘best movie evar’ and consider it the second coming of Jesus, its difficult to take said film seriously. With my best efforts, I completed my first viewing of Twilight, a film shamelessly engineered to hoover up money from its easily manipulated target audience.

The story is a simple and relatable one, a major reason why twilight is the success that it is today, a multibillion dollar franchise. Our protagonist, Bella (Kristen Stewart showing all one of her facial expressions) is an average girl, burdened with the hardship of moving schools from Arizona to Washington to live with her father. Soon she falls for Edward Cullen, a mysterious and impossibly attractive student who, as it turns out, is a vampire. Bella and Edward begin a relationship that not only endangers her, but also both their families.

As a romance, Twilight sucks. The pairing of Bella and Edward possesses no chemistry, a fatal flaw that can be attributed to both the terrible script and the dire acting. Edward is a poorly written character, hormonal to the point of having mood swings that effortlessly shatter any character development. Pattison has a degree of talent lurking under this shoddy character, but director Catherine Hardwicke completely fails to coax it out. The first half of the film involves Edward being nice to Bella, followed by being a total dick to her in the next shot. A prime example of the abysmal chemistry between the pair is when they get put together in biology. There’s no tension, romance or even awkwardness, just bad acting and writing.

Kristen Stewart is indescribably bad in the lead role, almost effortlessly ruining every scene she’s in. It may be a shock to her, but perpetually pouting, face devoid of emotion and mouth slightly parted doesn’t constitute as acting. Especially when it was her attempt at showing happiness. She was passable in Adventureland (2009, just a year later) but here she is abhorrent. The rest of the cast don’t fare much better, from her friendship group of stereotypes, her almost equally expressionless father (Billy Burke) to Jacob (Taylor Lautner), another teen idol with little in the way of actual talent. In all honesty the best character is the Washington countryside itself, a stunning collection of emerald greens and muted browns that still portrays emotion better than the entire cast.

This insipid storyline drags on for far longer than it should, until Bella’s scent is caught by the more malicious Vampires in the region, and must flee with the rest of the Cullen family to safety. The barely cooked romance is temporarily disposed of in favour of an interesting escape; the family splits into groups in an attempt to lure these antagonists away from Edward's new love. This burst of adrenaline is the undoubted highlight of the film, although this is still ruined by a final fight that has some hideous special effects. These hideous visuals match the quality of the rest of the film; cheesy and unimaginative.

With so little in the way of redeeming qualities, it’s truly perplexing as to why it’s garnered so much success. Any teenager who wants to watch good fantasy films needs to look no further than Harry Potter, and the yearly release of trashy RomComs still offer more emotion and heart than this insipid mess. If terrible acting and laughable writing is your thing, Twilight may well be the film for you.

3