Twilight Twi-bright,I am anything but an unsparing film pundit. Neither am I selective about the movies I watch. Action blockbusters, screen adaptations from novels, teenage/college saga, chick flicks, lengthy Bollywood dramas, romantic comedies, feel-good stories, horror series, must-watch epics, soft porn (forgive the lack of better category, since I must admit I have watched one too many American Pies, National Lampoon and whatnot), Malaysian and Indonesian production; you name it, I've watched it.
A painful movie I saw tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have the wish I wish tonight.
So when I say Twilight was painful to watch, I really mean it. It is not unusual that screen adaptations fail miserably (except perhaps PS I Love You), but Twilight was a big fat disappointment, like the big fat D on my first Additional Mathematics paper in 2004.
The script was lacking in sophistication, and the playwright, badly written. In the whole 2 and a 1/2 hours, I sat cringing at the exchanges between Edward Cullen, the pale charmer of a vampire and Bella, his equally pale counterpart. It wasn't so much cheesy lines like "Your scent is like a drug to me", "I just really want to suck your blood" (or something to that effect) that sent me reeling with laughter, but it was the whole awkwardness and lack of flair in the way the script was written.
Cullen, especially, talks like a social maladroit, and Bella utters lines that seem pulled out of thin air, suddenly cheesy, and always an awkward response to what her heartthrob had to say (which wasn't much, by the by). Then there is the whole awkward Daddy character, and the hilarious "Just keeping it real son" Native American man with his son. All were poor souls given dry lines like "Oh, so you caught that" when Bella asked the young Native American guy what they meant when they said "The Cullens never come [to the beach]".
Discounting the whole cheap hairdryer and drifting car tricks, I think the unjustified nervous fits the duo are thrown into wins the awkward element trophy, hands down. To my shortsighted eyes, the camera close-ups on the whole temple throbbing, throat-tightening and painful facial expressions could pass off very well as allergic reactions of some sort. I never caught on the reason they overplayed those adrenaline-rush moments.
Closely tailing that would be the "glassy-skin under the sunlight". Hollywood makeup/costumes/effects saw to its dearth this movie around. Can you really blame the UChicago audience for our exaggerated "oohs" and continuous laughter? I say not. Shoddy scenes, laughable dialogue, terrible makeup, somewhat wooden acting? Certainly our cue to laugh.
On a counterpoint, Edward Cullen was finally given a legibly sweet line near the end of the film, and this I'll never forget: "Is it not enough that you live happily with me for as long as you live?". Oh, and the innocent, "no sex, kiss only" teenage romance is a tantalizing change. We can now live with nightmares that a kiss may not just be a kiss, and a hicky may not just be a hicky. Necking brings a completely revolutionary meaning. Besides, you can't miss the AIDS metaphor in this.
Otherwise, I daresay a murder occurred tonight. Stephenie Meyer, my empathies to the murder of your trilogy. But surely this woman could not care less as long as the royalties keep coming, ain't it? Perhaps her babies were questionable in the first place, no?
Thanks for casting a hot vampire, but I'll play it safe with a normal mortal who's 20 only once. And really, thanks for the laughs lah.
