Twilight (the movie review)

Twilight Review

My wife and I attended a pre-screening of Twilight last night.  In my own state of declining health, I want to issue a formal apology to all my neighbors in the theater that had to put up with my relentless coughing and hacking throughout the film.  Yes, I was "that" movie-goer last night.

First and foremost, I'll admit.  I enjoy the series thus far (currently on the third book, Eclipse).  And as my wife would describe Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen, I think Ashley Greene as Alice Cullen is "le' hotness".

* SPOILER ALERT *  Skip to the Final Assessment to get past the spoiler.

The rest of this review will pretty much be a SPOILER, so reader beware.

As far as its adaptation to the screen, the film fell short in a few areas.  They didn't build out the relationships between characters, especially between Edward and Bella.  Why is Bella so taken by Edward?  They really don't establish Bella's attraction to Edward.  And then all of a sudden, Edward can't live without Bella.  Like... what?  Did I miss something?  Why is he all in love with her all of a sudden.  The film loses all of the mental anguish that Edward and Bella go through which finally lead them to be together.

I personally like how they portrayed the Cullen family.  Although, I knew they wouldn't have enough time to go into the history of the entire family, they were able to establish some sort of character for each family member.

* Final Assessment *

In a nutshell, if you enjoyed the book you'll probably enjoy the movie but as in most cases of film adaptations, it won't live up to the book.  I'm certain all of the crazed twilight tweeny boppers will help bring in some good numbers for the film.  However, the movie producers probably didn't foresee the huge number of fans that would come out.  This was apparent in the lack of preparation for the nationwide tour.  Several cities had to turn away thousands of disgruntled fans to meet the maximum limit of 500.  As mentioned in my blog regarding Robert Pattinson at Stonestown Galleria, 3000 plus fans showed up.  So perhaps, if Stephenie Meyer were to grace us with a sequel (yes, I'm aware that this is already in the works) then producers should probably think about allocating much more then the meager Hollywood budget of $37 million.  I probably would not recommend the movie for those that did not read the books.