Twilight

Why I think TWILIGHT  is the LAMEST vampire movie ever made for the big screen……

First and foremost, for those of you who haven’t had the slightest idea what movie i’m referring to, here’s a quick recap of the movie (which lasted for the longest two hours i’ve ever spent in a movie theater). This movie is about a “vegetarian” vampire named Edward (in the vampire world that translates to a vampire which feeds only on animal blood and never tasted human blood for the fear that they will go on a feeding frenzy which turns them into a monster) who falls in love with a human girl, Bella. You see Edward falls crazily in love with Bella for two main reasons, firstly, the smell of her blood is intoxicating and as addictive as heroin (i quote that from Edward, mind you) and secondly, her mind is the only mind in the whole town of Forks that Edward can’t seem to read which he finds frustrating yet interesting or whatever (you see every vampire in this movie has a special ability and Edward’s happened to be mind reading). They start this whole courting ritual which takes up the first  one hour of the movie. All went well for the two loving couples but troubles start when they meet up with a couple of rouge vampires who happens to feed on almost half of the town of Forks. One of the vampires is  a gorgeous blond (played by the hunky Cam Gigandet) who accidentally stumbled on the whole family on their annual baseball game and took a whiff of Bella’s blood and became addicted and plans to eat her up just to prove that he is a better alpha-male compared to the wimpy Edward. The movie ended with the couple dancing happily ever after during the school’s prom with Bella’s leg in a cast after tripping down the stairs and going through a glass window on the way down (when we all know that she was viciously attacked by a hot blond vampire and nearly died after a failed rescue attempt by her wimpy vampire boyfriend). Well, that about sums it all.

This movie is marketed as the next Harry Potter. Why is that so? Both movies are based on popular series of novels with almost the same demographic i.e. teenagers (well, harry potter was initially penned as a children’s story book until JK Rowling decided to change the direction of the whole series to include adult readers due to everwhelming response). They both center on teenagers who still goes to high school like every other kids but are embroiled in less than normal circumstances like falling in love with a 100 year old vampire who stays seventeen until whenever (i’ve never studied vampire biology so i’m not really sure how they age). They both center on tortured souls, Harry with his past and Edward unable to accept the fact that he is one filthy rich, handsome kid with supernatural powers but deep inside he is just a monster because he feeds on the blood of innocent deers in the forest.

The annual baseball game in this movie tries hard to replicate Quidditch in the Harry Potter movies. This is perhaps the only scene in the whole two hours of the movie where the whole vampire clan gets to show off their amazing powers except for Edward of course (he gets to jump from trees to trees like a monkey, move faster then a speeding bullet, stop a speeding van with just one hand, read people minds like his brain is somekind of bleutooth device, bluetoothing information with his other vampire siblings and best of all, change the colur of his eyes without having to wear contact lenses like the rest of us). In the age of CGIs and mechatronics, there is hardly one display of special effect (this is a story with a supernatural theme) except of course the scene where Edward literally shines like a diamond (in Bella’s words). The final showdown between Edward and the blond dude (i can’t really recall his name given the limited screen time he’s given, he was supposed to be Edward’s arch-nemesis) was anti-climactic and serves to enhance the wimpiness of the lead character, Edward. It takes the whole family of SEVEN to defeat ONE hunky, blonde vampire (this is probably due to the fact that Edward becomes malnourished due to his vegetarian practice).

The movie tries to replicate the magic of Harry Potter by purposely casting unknown actors as its main leads. Nobody knew Daniel Radcliffe before Harry Potter, however i do feel that casting Robert Patterson as the main lead has everything to do with Harry Potter. He was supposed to be Harry’s nemesis in love (if you recall, the were both vying for the love of a certain Cho Chang) before he died tragically in the hands of Voldemort. His presence in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was more believable even with very limited screen time. He might even be a very talented actor but after this movie, every one will remember him as the pasty faced, almost emotionless, wimpy vampire. His career suffers tremendously at the hands of an idiotic director.

This movie has the worst romantic scenes that can only be rivaled by Padme Amidala and Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars II. The screen play writer must be one stiff human being who probably never fall in love his entire life to ever come up with lines like, ” it’s like a lion falling in love with a lamb” and “then, i am a stupid lamb” (i never knew they have lambs in africa). It seems these days, you can google up on everything including the secret identity of your mysterious boyfriend ( i wonder if this movie is sponsored by google). This movie tries to portray Edward as a tortured soul pretty much like a Bollywood movie tries to show how miserable life can be being rich, famous, unbelievably handsome but still find something lacking in the case of Edward, not being human. The monstruos side of this vegetarian vampire was never fleshed out probably to avoid a PG rating by the censorship board. Bella’s acting is hardly memorable, Edward’s little sister shines so much brighter than even Edward himself.

So, enough trashing, did I find anything worth a praise in the entire two long hours of this agonizing romance/ horror?/ teen flick. Unfortunately NOT and I find myself wishing I was watching Transporter 3  and drooling over Jason Statham instead of some wimpy, pasty faced vampire prancing about like a monkey for two hours (i thought vampire are related to bats not spider monkeys).

Ratings: 1 out of 5