Twilight (2008)

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Cam Gigandet, Rachelle Lefèvre, Edi Gathegi

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Rating: C-

Where to begin... These are not good movies.  I'm not entirely sure how much of that is the fault of the movies themselves and how much is the fault of the source material upon which they're based, but it's many degrees of not good all around.  I will say this, though; they do kind of get better as the series goes on.  They never achieve a good state, but they get better - or at least, up until The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1.  I can't judge Part 2 as I haven't seen it yet.

For those lucky few who have somehow managed to avoid learning what Twilight is about, here's a quick recap.  Bella Swan (Stewart) moves to Forks, Washington, the wettest place in the continental United States, to live with her dad, Charlie (Burke).  There she meets Edward Cullen (Pattinson), a mind reading vampire who she falls in love with.  Edward and his family (patriarch Carlisle Cullen (Facinelli) and his wife Esme (Reaser), the psychic Alice Cullen (Greene) and her partner Jasper Hale (Rathbone), and Emmett Cullen (Lutz) and his partner Rosalie Hale (Reed)) are all what they call vegetarians, and do not heat human blood.  Most of the movie passes by with this being the only real plot point, but then the Cullens, Hales, and Bella meet nomadic, human blood drinking vampires Laurent (Gathegi), Victoria (Lefèvre), and James (Gigandet).  James is a tracker and after a confrontation with Edward becomes infatuated with the idea of killing Bella.

Once again, what to say... Okay, so there are three major problems with these movies.  One is the general script, the second the general acting and overall casting, and the third the general make-up.  The script... oh, the script.  I'm going to say this in defense of the movie overall; you can only do so much with a movie when the source material isn't that great.  For all of Twilight the movies' flaws, a lot of them are because of the flaws of the book.  This movie did a lot to stay true to the books, for which I respect.  A few things were omitted, and in such a way that while I don't think it really disabled Twilight, it does fail to set things up for The Twilight Saga: New Moon.  You see this a lot in movies and even in TV, and it really annoys me - if you're basing something on a series of books and planning on continuing the series think about how the cuts made affect later movies or seasons.  It's easy to harp on it in Twilight, but they also do it in Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games.

The second big thing here is the cast.  The acting isn't that great, and there are even points when it seems like some of the actors are breaking character, laughing at points that in-character they shouldn't be laughing at.  This isn't really a criticism of the actors themselves, because I don't think it's the flaw of the actors.  I've watched other works of most of the actors and really enjoyed them.  There are some really great actors in this movie, they're just not properly utilized here.  The other problem is the casting in general, which is rather horrible.  It's not enough to hire a good actor, you have to hire an actor that's right for a role.  There are some people who I thought were really perfectly cast - particularly in regards to the humans - but others not so much - particularly in regards to the vampires.  I think one of the biggest problems that Robert Pattinson has in this role is that his American accent definitely isn't a good one (it does get better), making you question why they hired someone to fill in the role of an American when he couldn't do the accent.  Accents are tricky and something that movies in general, not just Twilight, tend to get wrong.  Michael Collins is actually a really good movie, despite the fact that half the cast are Americans doing bad accents, and among the other half is Alan Rickman who doesn't even try to do an Irish accent. Accents are important, people.  The casting problems in Twilight, however, go beyond just accents. There's also the fact that the vampires are all supposed to be these pale creatures (the exception being Laurent, who is black), but for the most part they hired not-exactly pale actors.  The biggest example of this the case of Nikki Reed's Rosalie.  In the books, she's described as this gorgeous woman and Nikki Reed is gorgeous.  The problem is, naturally she's neither pale nor blonde - she's a brunette with a nice tanned complexion that comes from her Jewish, Cherokee, and Italian descent.  So, what do they do?  They slap what looks like pancake makeup and a horrible wig on her.  Nikki Reed isn't the only one that they got wrong here, although I do find it interesting that she's of Cherokee descent, while Taylor Lautner, who plays the Aboriginal Jacob Black, only has "distant" Native American ancestry.  Lautner's role immediately prior to Twilight was as Eugene Levy's son in Cheaper by the Dozen 2.  Don't hire a non-Aboriginal to play an Aboriginal, it's just an insult, especially as there are plenty of Aboriginal actors out there.

But, let's go back to the pancake makeup and bad wigs.  A huge part of what makes fantasy in general so great is the special effects.  The purpose is to take you out of the real world and into this fictional one, no matter how based-in-reality it is you need to have good special effects, especially when you're expecting to be a blockbuster.  The makeup here is horrible, absolutely horrible.  There are a slew of bad wigs, bad dye jobs, and bad attempts to make the not-pale actors look pale.  It's just bad all around.  I commend Twilight for attempting to stick to the source material a lot, but in regards to the makeup this really hinders the movie.  You want to have not-pale actors?  Then give up the pale aspect of the character.  Ditto with the blond.  Don't just give them a really bad dye job.  Yes, vampires are usually pale, but this is the 21st century.  We're allowed to update the myth - Stephenie Meyer does a lot to update this myth in general, and pale skin is not important to the plot.  The worst attempt at this is in the case of Edi Gathegi, who they attempt to make pale despite his being black.  It's just all kinds of bad.  But then, so is this movie.