Alyson and Lisa and I went to see Twilight the movie a little over a week ago, and this past Saturday Lisa hosted a Twilight movie discussion at the library for teens.  So in the past week I’ve been thinking a lot about the movie, and having a lot of conversations with others about the movie.  And my verdict stays the same as when I left the theater: it’s pretty bad.

I’ve read the whole Twilight saga, but I’m not a huge fan of the series.  The books are compelling at times, and also outrageously dull at times, and I was actually pretty relieved when I got to the end of Breaking Dawn and knew that I was DONE.  So I went into the movie without any huge expectations for what I was about to see, and would call myself more objective than someone who loves, loves, loves the books.

For me, then, the movie didn’t fail because of the little details that are different from the books (I couldn’t care less whether the Cullens’ house is white and traditional or brown and modern), but because it’s poorly done and badly acted.  The pace of the film drags, and Edward and Bella have little “chemistry” with each other.  Bella looks perpetually mentally overtaxed, as if it hurts to think, and Edward is stiff and awkward and anything but sexy.  Their scenes together are way too long, and the pauses in their conversations that are meant to be pregnant with meaning are simply overdrawn and deadly boring.

Aside from the problems with Edward and Bella, the film fails in other ways.  The makeup is overdone, most notably the first time we see Carlisle Cullen in the emergency room.  Carlisle’s face is powdered vampire white, but his neck is its natural color – there’s actually a makeup demarkation line along his chin.  And, as one of the teens attending on Saturday noted, Carlisle’s hair is obviously dyed blonde.  “Hello,” the teen commented, “Couldn’t they have found any naturally blonde attractive actors?????”

Other failings:  Lisa noticed a cameraman showing in the scene where Bella is being harrassed by the thugs in the city (and Lisa saw the movie three times); some of the actors are poorly cast (Jasper comes to mind here, as his doofus expression inspired an explosion of laughter amongst my fellow theater-goers); and the plot would be pretty hard to follow if you hadn’t read the books.

I thought the movie sucked (great word to use when describing a vampire movie!), and I was shocked to read David Denby’s review of it in The New Yorker.  I had to read Denby’s review three times to confirm that yes, he liked it.  Huh??  I almost lost faith in my own opinion after reading that review: maybe I’d missed something?  Maybe I’m a lot dumber than Denby and am showing my ignorance by hating the movie?  But then I watched Paul Giamatti in John Adams and felt confident again in my condemnation of Twilight.  I’m no movie critic, but I can tell the difference between a well-done, well-acted film and a C+ vampire flick.