Twilight
Reviewed by Kate, age 17, New Hampshire
Sweet Designs Featured Writer
Spoiler Alert! Caution: This review contains story line information you may not wish to see if you are unfamiliar with the plot and intend to see this movie.
Stephenie Meyer's Twilight hit theaters on Friday, November 21, 2008 for the first time! For those of you who haven't read the book, Twilight is about 17 year old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), who moves from her home with her mother René (Sarah Clarke) in Phoenix, Arizona, to rainy Forks, Washington, to live with her father Charlie (Billy Burke). But this "boring" town has many surprises for Bella. As a new student at Forks High School, everyone knows her, and she quickly befriends Mike Newton (Michael Welch), Eric Yorkie (Justin Chon), Jessica Stanley (Anna Kendrick), and Angela Weber (Christian Serratos). She is also reacquainted with childhood friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner).
At Forks High School, Bella also gets her first look at the Cullen family, the school's hottest students: Rosalie Hale (Nikki Reed), Emmet Cullen (Kellan Lutz), Alice Cullen (Ashley Greene), Jasper Hale (Jackson Rathbone), and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Her first encounter with the gorgeous Edward Cullen in her Biology class is far from what she expected. Edward is tense and avoids her at all costs, which makes Bella upset and confused. After many encounters and a confrontation, the two become close friends, and secrets are slowly revealed - Edward Cullen is a vampire!
But Bella refuses to let this scare her because she has fallen in love with Edward, who in turn falls in love with her. But their love proves to be difficult, as Bella is suddenly involved with vampires far worse than the "vegetarian" Cullens she becomes close with. This movie is filled with romance and high paced action that will keep you on the edge of your seat, and certainly begging for more of the Cullen boys!
Being a Twilight fan, I was very excited when the movie came out. But when I finally saw it on Friday night, I was also a little disappointed. I know many movies don't follow the books and take liberties, but I felt in this movie, they took too many liberties.
For everyone who has read the book, we all know that Bella's lullaby is a pretty big part in the book. Edward wrote and played it for Bella, and in the movie, this was not shown. There is a scene in which Edward plays the piano, but it is a quick scene, and, if taken out of the movie, proves to be of no significance, which I thought was disappointing.
For all of you car fanatics, you will notice that Rosalie's car, which is supposed to be a BMW M3 convertible, is, in the movie, a Mercedes. (I was informed of this by my friend Chris. If it weren't for him, I never would have noticed!)
I also felt that the graphics were not that great. For anyone who has seen the Harry Potter movies, I'm sure you will agree that the effects are amazing and very well done. In Twilight, there are many scenes where you see the vampires' true speed, and Edward's sparkling skin, but these scenes impressed me as poor in the graphical sense. Harry Potter, a movie that came out well before Twilight, had excellent graphics and effects. Why does it seem that Twilight was poorly made? Could it have been because it was produced by Summit Entertainment, a company I have never heard of? Could this mean that it's not a big company? Could that play a role in the poor graphics? Whatever it is, I'm hoping the next movie will be made better.
I also felt that the scenes were rushed. They seemed to jump from scene to scene and never really seemed to show as much detail as I would have liked. Though a two hour movie, the transitions between the scenes could have been smoother and maybe even longer.
Not to sound like I totally hated the movie, but I thought it was too "Edward and Bella." The other characters didn't seem to play an important role in the movie, like they were forgotten. Being an Alice fan myself, I know that in the book Alice was very interested in Bella, and they did spend time together. I thought there should have been more of an interaction between Bella and the other characters in the movie.
I know it seems like I'm really tearing the movie apart, but I honestly thought it could have been better made. As I mentioned before, it could be that Summit Entertainment has never really made a big hit movie before, because I'd never heard of the company before seeing Twilight.
Though I picked out a lot of flaws, it is still a good movie, and it is definitely one I will be adding to my movie collection! If you haven't seen the movie yet, I suggest you do! Even if you haven't read the books, the movie is worth watching and is full of hot guys and lots of romance that every girl wants! Hopefully the next movie will be better, and already I can't wait to see it! Let the countdown to New Moon begin!
I give this movie 4 stars (of a possible 5).
