Twilight

Released: 2008
MPAA rating: PG-13
Run time: 2:02

I had avoided this movie for quite some time simply because I did not really think I was its intended audience. It just seemed like it was too "Dracula 90210" to be of any interest to me. When my daughter (who is a little younger than the target audience) wanted to see it, I did some research and figured it would be "safe enough". Hey, I have a bit of an affinity for vampire stories, so we decided to give it a try. First order of good news is that it was safe enough, at least as far as I was concerned. There is no gore and despite all of the sensuality associated with vampires, there were no love scenes. "Twilight" is told from the viewpoint of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), who is forced to live with her father (Billy Burke) when her mother remarries and decides to travel with her new husband. Bella makes some fast friends, but soon finds herself mesmerized by Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who is part of the "weird" Cullen family, who don't really associate with any one. At first, he seems repulsed by her, but, of course, they end up being deeply in love while she slowly discovers he is a vampire. He falls for her, too, but has to balance that with the incredible yearning to take her blood. Along with this troubled romance, there are a series of murders occurring in town, which builds toward a battle between the Cullen family and the killers with Bella being squarely in the middle. To my surprise, this was a very entertaning movie and a worthy entry into vampire lore. Pattinson does a really nice job as Edward. I had expected there to be too much "high school" and not enough vampire. Sure, there was some, but I thought it was balanced nicely. While remaining mostly true to vampire lore, there were a couple wrinkles thrown in: the introduction of the concept of "vampire vegetarians" (they only consume the blood of animals), for one thing. There was one thing that was not pursued, however. Bella is noticeably pale. Early in the movie, one of the characters even tells her: "Aren't you from Arizona? I thought people had tans in Arizona". This trait is never explained and never mentioned again. It seemed that if they went out of the way to make her so pale, they should have done something with it.


Grade: B

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