"Twilight" is pale by comparison

Here's a review from someone who actually read the books.

Books and film; and this should go without saying, are two different types of art. They tell stories differently, they have to because what you can do in a film you can’t in a book and vice versa. What makes your pulse quicken, and tell your mom you’ll call her back when you read a book could really fall flat on film because you catch what’s going on and what’s being said in a film quicker than in a book. I think that was the huge flaw of the movie version of “Twilight”.

They slavishly held to the fact that the book was written in first person narrative, making every scene from Bella’s point of view. Now that worked in the book because we were carried on with Bella as she discovered who Edward and the Cullens were and the complexity and exotic beauty of their world. But first of all, everyone who has read the books and has gone to see the movie already knows all the mysterious things about them, there’s no adrenaline rush as we go along with Bella. And anyone who hasn’t read the books and goes to see the movie, well, lets face it, they also already know the big secret.

What they should’ve done was have some scenes where we see the Cullens at home, without Bella. We only get to see the Cullens from Bella’s perspective in the book, the film was a chance for us to see them from a different point of view, to know them deeper, and differently. In film, you need to become attached to the characters quicker, you don’t have several hundred pages to do it in, you have ninety to a hundred and twenty minutes. We needed to care about the Cullens more than we did in the film so that we cared if they got hurt by the three attacker Vampires. We needed to know them deeper so that we fell in love with them all over again, just as Bella did.

The film could’ve started with a scene in which we see the treaty with Quilete Indians and the Cullens, that way we see the two different hero groups of the books, we care about them right off. There should’ve been some scenes on the reservation, letting us get to know Jacob and the others in this film right away. Maybe seeing their reaction to the murders going on, adding some MUCH needed tension in the first half of the film. It would’ve also added depth and complexity to the story in the film. In the book it’s teased out over four books, and that’s fine, it works in the book. But, again, this is a film.

That’s another thing, the only tension the film depended on in the beginning was “Who is Edward and will he bite Bella?” Well, to be honest, even if I didn’t already know the answer to those questions, it just wasn’t enough to carry the first half of the film. Interspersing scenes without Bella more, delving into the other various characters, treating the movie goers with a bit more respect for our intelligence, would have gone a long way to making the film interesting.

Now, the makeup….OH MY GOD IT WAS BAD!!!!! I do my own stage makeup and I, not being a professional makeup artist, know the golden rule: Blend into the neck. Was it just me or did the Cullens have a white makeup line the first time we saw them? It was distractingly bad, and believe me I tried to ignore it. I think they toned Edwards down a bit, but some of the others were so bad it was truly awful.

I also think that the actors playing Edward and Bella were way over directed. I’ve seen them both in different films and found them good, but in this film what little chemistry they had was underdone. Their first kiss was the most chemistry they had all film, and it was disappointing that this passionate, yet chaste, love story was so tepid in the film.

The director was a woman, and I gotta say, I was also disappointed in her. Female directors in this business are rare, c’mon lady, step it up a notch! Intimate moments that were good between Edward and Bella were broken up by “cool” camera work, shots were a little slapped together, and some of the fast running scenes were not believable.

Now, there were moments I did like. The Baseball game was just as I imagined it in the book and it was fun. The first kiss was amazing, the few moments where Edward and Bella really connected or were just discovering each other; most of these scenes occurred in the woods, were good. The fight scene at the end rocked. But it wasn’t enough to carry the film.

In the sequel, which is rumored to be filming in January, I hope to God they don’t slavishly reproduce the book, that they take us with Edward to South America, that they let us see scenes with Jacob talking to the other wolves about the changes he’s going through. In other words, that they really do an adaptation instead of a weak carbon copy.