If you plan on seeing the movie & haven't yet -- STOP READING NOW.Soo late Friday night found my mom, sister & I in a packed theater for Twilight. I was excited to see the movie & was expecting the special effects of Harry Potter, with the love story of The Notebook...all wrapped into one glorious movie. That is what Hollywood has done in the past & I was happy with it --
Unfortunately for Twilight, it did not get the same treatment. Not even close. Here are my critiques -- and might I say I am usually easy to please, but this one was just soo off.
- The Cinematography was lame for lack of a better word. There is one scene where they are trying on prom dresses that looks like I could have filmed it with my own video camera -- that is how bad the lighting is. I think they should have taken a more serious approach, instead it feels a little reality tv-ish.
- The Make-Up is absolutely horrible. Carslile (sp?) looked way too ghostly & Jacob Black's wig was all wrong. Plus, Bella is so pale she already looks like a vampire.
- The Acting was elementary. I don't know if they needed to do a few more takes or just get a new director, but the movie lost all the subtlety of the book. This was most apparent when Bella & Edward meet for the first time in Biology -- he looked like he was ready to attack her any second -- which I realize is what he was feeling, but they didn't need to spell it out for me. I can connect the dots -- a few uncomfortable stretches, a brief dirty look would do just fine.
- The special effects were lame as well. When Edward was in the sunlight it looked like he had gotten in to my niece's glitter lip gloss -- c'mon give me a little more than that.
- And most disappointing of all, the love story was completely under developed! The movie kept switching from scene to scene without letting us fall in love with the characters which was completely frustrating.
Also they totally tailored the movie to high school age -- with stupid trendy phrases, that really aren't trendy & came across completely cheesy. They should have taken a much more mature approach -- Harry Potter accomplishes this perfectly. If I wanted to hear stupid cheesy phrases then I would have gone to see Bring it On, not Twilight.
Anyway, I hope hope hope the 2nd one gets a new director & bigger budget or something...anything to help it be better. It is such a fantastic story that it is a complete bummer that they didn't capture it on screen. My imagination while reading served me much better on this one.
