A Movie A Week: 'Twilight' (2008)

I've been lucky enough (mainly because of an enthusiastic and resourceful movie buff family) to at least catch one movie every single week and it has been going on for a long time now. So, I'll run them down in this on-again off-again column 'A Movie A Week' as and when they come to me.

Twilight: I finally got around to seeing this one recently. After so much was made of Stephenie Meyer's young-adult vampire-romance novel being brought to the screen last year, I wondered which side of the fence I would be on. Unfortunately, not having read the book, I have no basis for comparison and cannot tell you how good an adaptation it is. On its own merits, it is a fairly mediocre film that reeks of low-budget filmmaking. I would guess that the novel has more depth because this one embraces shallowness and rushes through characterisation. I like the teen angst/vampire story idea but it's been done in so many different (and better) ways in recent years. The fact is that I've seen episodes of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' that kept me more interested than this one. Maybe the source material itself is lacking and the low budget didn't make anything easy. However, director Catherine Hardwicke and Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen don't do themselves any favours. I could see what they were attempting to do with some mixed character motivations and stilted dialogue but the storytelling felt a little weak. Hardwicke may have been passionate about the material but she cannot direct action at all (the weakest element of the film) and maybe some more scenes and backgrounding for the rest of the Cullen household would have helped. Kristen Stewart and the second-tier cast actually give a pretty good account of themselves, so it's not a total loss. The film, on the whole, is difficult to recommend. I usually love a good vampire movie but Twilight just didn't deliver the goods - it winds up as a pseudo-hip teen romp that cashes in on the flavour of the season.