Finally saw Twilight in the theater today. It was… great! Totally deviant from what I’d been expecting. I’ve read excerpts from the book, and as someone who is allergic to too much sap and melodrama, it was pretty clear I would not be able to endure all that romancing about.
What the movie did good was try to get rid of all that cheese as much as it can – and I am very thankful for that! Although it still had to let through some of those (My personal brand of heroin? Really?), it was to a manageable bare minimum. I love that the romance was underplayed: the focus was on having a snappy story, and quite unexpectedly, very likeable characters.
And yet the love between Bella and Edward (main characters) was there, shown in glimpses along scenes, and in the actors’ faces. (Okay maybe just Kristen Stewart’s – her partner does not seem quite at par.) The more minute details of their affair are left as an exercise for the audience’s imaginations… or at least mine.
I also like the way vampires were portrayed, which was: like human beings! And why shouldn’t they act human-like, when they have been assimilating themselves into human society for the longest time? It is thankfully not like the HBO series True Blood where vampires were menacing weirdos with goth makeups. Not to say all vampires should be that way – it’s just refreshing to see something different for a change.
The third half developed into a sort-of chase, with Bad Guys and imminent danger and all that. I found it quite thrilling, and even THE fight sequence was very effective, in spite of being very brief. (Or perhaps, it is because of that briefness that it works.)
To summarize: Twilight was a fun movie to see. It very much reminds me of The Lost Boys, an old contemporary vampire film with a coming-of-age story and some humor thrown in. I love movies like that.
