A 'Twilight' review for the 'twi-curious'

If you’re confused and slightly aroused by the fervor surrounding the film ‘Twilight’ you’re probably either a teenager radically sheltered by an overzealous Christian parent or you’re just old. I would fall into the latter category.

Actually, it’s not so much that I am old as it is a case of just not being the demographic for the film nor the wildly popular book series by Stephenie Meyer. The ‘Twilight’ franchise is much like rap music, ‘The Hills’ and anything involving Tela Tequila; forty year-old white men are not even in the top ten when it comes to target audience.

The Twilight book series has clearly had some cross-over success with women, attracting older demographics that couldn’t resist the dark fairytales of Bella and Edward. However, manly men such as myself and others (straight, married or divorced, able to name all thirty-two NFL teams, and would include The Godfather and Goodfellas in their personal best films of all time lists) have avoided the allure of the books and especially the movie. Not since… well, this summer’s ‘Mama Mia’ have movie theaters been so disproportionately deprived of testosterone. Only sexually confused teenage boys, ones still trying to impress girls they are courting and any male who had recently fucked up in any way and were forced to go were dropping the down the nine fifty required to see this movie.

Understanding that I couldn’t possibly maintain my self-respect and see Twilight in my local theater, I was left with two choices: I could travel outside a stones throw of my zip code or I could do what tech savvy twi-curious men everywhere are doing and download a pirated version off the internet. The copy I downloaded was a crude version shot with a video camera. The quality was pretty good, though, certainly good enough to get by.

All in all, ‘Twilight’ is exactly what I thought it would be. At times it reminded me of ‘Dawson’s Creek’ in the rain and at others it looked like a carbon copy of Guns n Roses’ ‘November Rain’ video. It was embarrassingly cliché at times and left me with the constant expectation that Luke Perry would be strolling onto the screen at any moment.

Without spoiling the storyline, I will say that Bella, played by Kristen Stewart is the most believable and compelling character. At no time did I want to punch her in the stomach. She was cute and not overly emo or conflicted. I was pleasantly surprised that neither she nor any of the other frontline characters were driven to cut themselves. Edward (Robert Pattinson), on the other hand eased into the film like the spawn of Fiona Apple and Jim Morrison. The dark circles under his eyes and his pasty white skin effectively conveyed one-hundred years of a tortured and loveless existence. Edward became a vampire at seventeen and was therefore cursed with repeating high school year after year in order to maintain a believable cover. Clever. We learn quickly that Edward was, as Michael Jackson said, not like the other boys. For a hundred years Edward has posed as a high school boy and resisted the temptations of the eras. It is this storyline that first illustrates that these books were clearly written by an idealistic Mormon woman.

If you go my route and watch an illegal copy of Twilight, pause the movie at the thirty minute mark. Try to guess in your head how the rest of the film will go. How will it end? You’ll be exactly right, I assure you. Nothing about ‘Twilight’ is a surprise or offers a twist. Legitimate reviews of the film have said that it lacks “bite”. Well said. The climax seems to take forever develop and is played out in record time. And, no, that is not a metaphor for Mormon sexual dysfunction. Clearly, there is a strong and freaky vibe in the LDS. They, after all invented polygamy and sex with minors in pioneer outfits. Mormons are very in touch with the concept of getting some ‘strange’.

The third and decisive act of the film really doesn’t even start until more that three quarters of the way through the film and is resolved in a matter of minutes. The focus of the film remains consistent and obliging to its target audience and is mostly about the emerging and innocent love of these two teenagers. So if you’re looking for a few hot scenes of vampire sex, move on. The couple only shares one kiss that I remember. And when you consider that Edward’s skin is cold to the touch and is actually one-hundred years-old, chances are he suffers from severe erectile dysfunction. Clearly this story was not meant to be dissected.

The bottom line is that ‘Twilight’ is probably exactly what you think and exactly what tween and teen girls everywhere are hopelessly searching for. How it compares to the book, I can’t say and wouldn’t say even if I could. I can see a nice little franchise emerging here. While this film had a surprisingly low budget look to it, subsequent efforts will no doubt benefit from the success of this film. Expect the next film, ‘New Moon’ to look more sleek and upgraded. The challenge for the makers of these films will be to get them made quick enough to maintain the illusive interest of their target audience. For an example of how this will go if it’s dragged out over time see the chronology of New Kids on the Block.