Why so late with this review?  Well in the reality I live in, it didn’t get here till January, so I had to wait for it.  Then I had to sit in a crowded theater of  insane obsessive teenagers who screamed whenever one of the vampires came on screen (no, not the "Ahh! How scary!" type scream, but the "Oh! Swoon!" type screaming… Blah!) to watch this film. I wasn’t a fan of the audience, in the least!

Now why this review. I’m a Twilighter… Yes, you heard right, I’m obsessively compulsively insanely crazy about the entire saga, and I’m much much much much older than the teens that screamed in the theater.  There are only 4 published books… and one that may possibly someday finish being written (I’ll get to that at some point in the future).  I adored the books… even though they do have some obvious grammatical errors (and anyone who reads this will be shocked I picked up on them… I suck at grammar) and typos. It’s kinda shocking. I wouldn’t have gotten into the series if it hadn’t been for my hubs going out and buying them… then refused to put them down.  Anyway, after I finished the books I eagerly awaited this movie, simply because the books are from the heroine Bella’s POV and I wanted to watch Edward’s (the vampire hero) reaction. I was also hoping they would go more into his  POV with the movie.  So I eagerly awaited for January to see this film…

And was terribly disappointed.  It wasn’t "Twilight" and I was shocked that the writer of the series, Stephenie Meyer, was okay with anything (besides casting) of this film.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent vampire flick if you haven’t read the book series. But, it had little resemblance to the actual book.  I took a friend (who, by the way, had not read the books) with me to see this film, and she liked it a lot. After it was over, she turned to me and asked how it compared to the book. The best I could say was, “At least they got the names/characters right.”

Some points they touched on, but didn’t get exactly right.  I don’t understand how you can screw up a book: everything is laid out for you, including the dialog.  I can understand having to cut some scenes due to time restraints, but to mess it up as badly as they did… it’s ridiculous.  For example, Bella figured out Edward was a vampire after her trip to La Push (where her native American friend, Jacob, told her he was rumored to be a vampire) and told Edward she knew on the car ride back from Port Angeles. In the movie, Jacob never said he was a vampire, only that the Cullens were from an “enemy clan” which meant she had no clue at Port Angeles, figured it out after she got home, and revealed it to Edward in the forest.  In the book, James, Victoria, and Laurnet had not caused any trouble or killed anyone but appeared because they were passing through in the baseball field.  In the movie they had been on a killing spree in the general area and actually killed one of Bella’s dad Charlie's friends.  In the book, Bella found out that James was a tracker by his conversation with his sister Alice, not because Edward was just telling her everything, like in the movie.  The story in the book was beautifully put and mesmorizing.  The movie, though still enjoyable, didn’t even hold a candle to what the book was.  Which, in the end, made it a huge disappointment.

The dialog was retarded… please tell me that’s not how teenagers these days talk!  In the reveal scene (where Bella tells Edward she knew what he was) in the forest they had these insane camera angles, kind of what you would expect if they were being stalked by some b-movie slasher maniac, not when two people are just talking.  That’s all that happened: they were just talking! Then, they had Edward climb trees and jump from branch to branch, which doesn’t exactly mesh with his or her character (Bella is a horrible clutz, and Edward is a bit OCD about her safety), so I doubt he would risk her life by doing such things. In the book, they just had him run with her at extreme speeds.  Not to mention the whole jumping scene looked beyond hokey… I know they had a limited budget, but holy crap, why would anyone think that the same type of special effects they had in the original Superman movies back in the 80’s would fly in 2008?  It would have been to cut that part all together than to put it in and make it look so damn retarded. 

They never really did show Edwards POV very well either.  The fifth book (if it ever gets finished),  is "Twilight" from Edwards POV.  It was leaked on the internet, so Stephenie Meyer put the leaked version on her website and announced that she was putting the book on hold indefinitely.  The 12 chapters she wrote were absolute genius, showing exactly how complicated Edward is… none of which was communicated well in the film.  Don’t get me wrong, Robert Pattinson did a wonderful job with the shitty script he had, but I would have liked to see more of his life weaved into the movie. If your going to add stuff, you might as well add it to the right characters. 

In short, Twilight was definitely made to be a teenie bopper movie, which of course can be enjoyable... if you're not expecting something far deeper.  It’s not nearly as good as the book series. I hope that they learn from their mistakes and fix it while they make the next film, New Moon.  If that film turns out to be just as crappy, I doubt they will ever finish adapting the series. 

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