Twilight (2008) - Not an Official Sunday "Bad" Movie

I wrote this post about four years ago in the early days of the Sunday "Bad" Movies.  This was after the first ten weeks, when I had stopped polling for which movies to watch and was just watching movies and writing about the bad ones to make a backlog.  I decided against including Twilight for some reason or another.  Perhaps it was because I didn't think it was quite bad enough.  Thinking on it now, I may do a franchise post sometime in the future.  Either way, I didn't post this in the blog and had it just sitting in my documents folder that whole time.  I thought it would be interesting to post it unedited this week, as part of week 200 of the blog.  I didn't have time to do some elaborate post in celebration of this week.  But it's still a treat to see something that I buried for a long time, right?  Here you go.  This is not an official Sunday "Bad" Movie.

 

In 2008, a movie was released that would have a huge effect upon the movie landscape.  This movie was the first in a franchise that felt like it went on for a long, long time.  It made enough money to sink a canoe, many times over.  What it is known most for is the love from fangirls, and the vitriol and hate from almost anyone else.  This movie is Twilight.

Twilight is directed by Catherine Hardwicke.  It stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson among other people who may or may not be mentioned later.  The story is fairly simple.  A girl falls in love with a boy.  The boy turns out to be a vampire.  The girl still loves him.  The boy says it is too dangerous for them to be together.  The girl does not care.  The girl is in danger.  It is one of those stories.  We have all been involved in a relationship like this at one point or another in our lives.

This movie is not all that bad.  Sure, there are bad parts to it, and the romance is dumb and overly serious, but there are moments in which the movie rises above this melodramatic plotting.  In the first half of the film, there is a comedic undertone that does not shine through a lot, but when it does, it is humorous.  A few laughs came in the early portions of the movie.  These laughs do not come from anything poorly done, but rather intentional moments of humour that work surprisingly well.  Most of this is adolescent joking that comes across as semi-authentic.  When the high school light-heartedness becomes the background noise of the film, however, the accessibility of the movie begins to dissipate.

The romantic storyline of Twilight feels contrived and amateur in how it is portrayed.  The way that the relationship plays out with the character of Edward being in love but finding it too dangerous could play out as interesting, if it had not worn so tiresome over the two hours that the movie ran.  There are simply too many instances in which his love for her is declared and he backs off to keep her safe.  It builds dramatic tension up to a point.  The problem is that the movie keeps returning back to that same plot point, time and time again.  It struggles to push the story forward because it holds onto that same beat for so long.  Once the movie eventually moves beyond that point, it improves enough to become attached to again.

Helping to give an enjoyable edge to Twilight is the supporting cast.  Billy Burke is good, as he normally is, playing the father of the main character.  Anna Kendrick is a delight as one of Bella’s classmates.  Most of the Cullen family were fun to watch.  The supporting cast did exactly what they were hired to do.  They give the movie a firm support that it could easily have been missing.  Most people would say that the same cannot be said for the leads, but there is something slightly off with that assessment.  Robert Pattinson does a commendable job as Edward Cullen.  He knows not to take the role completely seriously, and as serious as he plays Edward, there is always a slight note of self-awareness to his performance that keeps Twilight from being a complete disaster.  On the other hand, there is Kristen Stewart.  It has become rare that good things are said about her acting, and most of that generalization comes from her performance in this series of movies.  She is terrible as Bella Swan.  Every single mannerism of the character, pertaining to her relationship with Edward Cullen, is overacted and hilariously bad.  It is hard to believe that this is the same girl who was much more subtle in Adventureland.  The facial expressions alone are exaggerated throughout Twilight.  Some of the influence for this had to have come from the director rather than the actor.  Sure, it is a terrible performance, but it is hard to believe that all of the blame for it falls upon the shoulders of Kristen Stewart.

The defense of Twilight above is not meant to say that this is an exceptional film.  It is not.  Twilight is essentially a poor work that has the elements of a good film.  The plotting, direction, and lead performance greatly bring down what could have been.  However, this is more watchable than anticipated and there are moments that are better than expected.  With a different director, a tighter story, and some improved acting, the movie could be better.  For what it is, it does not deserve all of the money that was thrown at it, but it also does not deserve the hate that was set upon it.  It is an okay movie with many flaws and many good components.