The Twilight Saga films, so far, are very accurate to the books (cue the screaming girls with pitchforks and torches).
I’m sorry, but I believe that Kristen Stewart played Bella Swan perfectly: a whinny, buck-tooth, dull, linear, boring, mumbling, retarded (yes, I used the “R” word), multi-personality teen girl who gasps and opens her mouth without saying a lot of words.
The same can be said about Edward Cullen and Jacob Black: they play their characters perfectly. And that is the problem with these movies. The horrible characters from the book are played too perfectly, and so even the teenage girls who love the books are seeing the problems with Bella, whether they want to or not.
I will not get into much of the story (which is REALLY FLAWED), but for those who have no idea what it is about, here it is in a nutshell (SPOILER ALERT): girl meets vampire, girl falls in love with vampire, girl gets threatened by other vampires, good vampires kill bad vampires (with much drama and horrendous dialogue, acting, and cinematography; end of first movie). Girl gets hurt on accident by good vampire, good vampires leave, girl falls in love with werewolf, werewolf hurts girl’s heart, girl forgives werewolf, werewolf tries to protect girl from good and bad vampires, good vampire think girl dies, girl saves good vampire, end of second movie (with more horrendous drama and acting. However the Volturi are quite good, surprisingly). (END OF SPOILERS)
In Twilight, there were only three good things about that movie: Anna Kendrick, who plays one of Bella’s human friends named Jessica; Ashley Greene, who plays one of Bella’s vampire friends; and Billy Burke, who plays Bella’s dad.
I mentioned the cinematography because the director, Catherine Hardwicke, sweeps the camera back and forth very randomly, making it very dizzying. The whole time I was begging the screen to stop, but it didn’t, so I had to shut my eyes. And the DOP, that’s director of photography, thought it would be fun to do many shots of Bella’s buck-teeth expressions and gasping mouth, but it gets tiring.
Twilight Saga: New Moon is not as bad. The dialogue is still terrible, but they had so little to go off of in the first place. The acting of the leads is still atrocious, but now we see Taylor Lautner’s bad acting instead of Robert Pattinson. But what stole the show was the Volturi, the vampire royalty. Michael Sheen was amusing as the soft spoken, but terribly creepy Aro. Dakota Fanning, I was pleased to find out, could do well in one of her performances. She plays an expressionless, sadistic vampire called Jane (perfect role for her). Another improvement on the second was the music. I enjoy Alexandre Desplat’s music very much, however there is always room to improve, and that is why I am excited to hear what Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings) will do for Eclipse.
Overall, if you have not read the books, stay away from the movies and stay away from the books. Don’t touch them. My friends begged me to read them and I regret it very much. However, I am going to see the next installment this summer, just to see if it is an improvement on the book.
Next time: Johnny Depp Marathon: Public Enemies, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sleepy Hollow, Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy, Chocolat, Sweeney Todd, and Edward Scissorhands.
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