Twilight twitters

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New on DVD: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Step Brothers, The X-Files: I Want to Believe

It’s funny, the first time I saw the trailer for Twilight, I scoffed. Then as the film’s premiere approached it sort of took over pop culture. The blogosphere obsessively gossiped about it, entertainment magazines swooned over stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, and closeted fans of Stephenie Meyer’s mega-selling book series outed themselves in droves. Crap, I thought, as an entertainment writer I’m going to have to see this movie.

The story is simple. Precocious loner Bella Swan moves in with her estranged father and begins attending a new high school in rural Washington state. There she meets the mysterious Edward Cullen and his “family” who, as luck would have it, are a pack of somewhat benevolent vampires founded by a doctor with a bleeding heart for, well, bleeding hearts. She falls fast for Edward just in time for the big dance and, like, a totally OMG convo about everlasting love.

Now, everyone from Bela Legosi to Gary Oldman to Tom Cruise has proven that vampires can be the ultimate bad boys. So the film’s appeal to teenage girls is understandable. What I didn’t count on–no pun intended–is Twilight growing into some kind of phenomenon. Stoked by unending references on MTV–even though MTV Films passed on distributing the movie–and a certain indie Hogwart’s street cred from Pattinson having played the minor, but pivotal role of Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Twilight pulled in a remarkable $70 million dollars in U.S. theaters for its opening weekend; an excellent return on a film that cost $37 million to make. So there’s little doubt a sequel is on its way, probably based on Meyer’s follow-up novel New Moon. But for those who haven’t seen it yet, is it worth checking out? Well, yes and no. Diehards of the genre, people who vamp it up every Halloween or stroke their signed Ann Rice volumes every night before bedtime, will probably dig how Meyer twists the classic undead lore for the standard high school romantic comedy. But for anyone else over the age of 21, particularly guys, Twilight comes off like a slightly above-average Saturday afternoon TV movie of the week.

Right away my audience picked up on the awkward pauses and on-the-nose dialogue, and the people sitting around me weren’t shy about showing it with rounds of laughter. This is the same crowd that cheered wildly for the new Harry Potter trailer that played before the feature. Pattinson and Stewart are stars for sure, but they won’t escalate to the A-list with movies like this. Still, both work hard to make Twilight better than its script would have it be. The problems lie with a story that is too superficial for such a weighty subject. Basically, Twilight raises far more questions than it answers. Simple things like “Why do vampires have to go to high school?” and “Why does this dialogue hurt my teeth?” to more meaty material like “What does it really mean for an immortal being to fall in love with someone who he will only spend a minute fraction of his existence with?” Sub question: Is commitment really commitment when there is a known expiration date?

Then, as the credits rolled, it hit me. Twilight is a vampire movie for the Twitter Generation. It’s like bursts of intermittent text messages with its short snippets of action and character development that are sketchy at best and often misinterpreted. What a shame that a fine director like Catherine Hardwicke didn’t go for something grander here. If she had, then Twilight wouldn’t be another classic case of “the book was better.”