“Twilight”
*Spoilers ahead*
A horde of giggling girls, some accompanied by their unwilling boyfriends, some by their willing-to-bond mothers. Excitement and anticipation on every face. Well, except on those of the beforementioned mothers and boyfriends. My cousin and I in the middle, enjoying the commotion. The “Twilight”-fever has hit Germany, and we’re in the middle.
First of all: I wouldn’t have thought that the series had this many fans on this side of the Atlantic. I’ve noticed the hysteria in the US, and though the situation over here can’t be compared to it the cinema was full last night. “Bis(s) zum Morgengrauen” was the German version of “Twilight” and quite successful over here. Amazon recommended it to me, so I bought the English version. I enjoyed it, though I’ve read better written books over the years. Back to the movie:
It was a blessing and a curse to be viewing it with an audience of fan-girls. On the one hand it was really nice not to be the only one saying things like: “What, this blue truck is Bella’s? I never imagined it like this! Oh no, it’s the rusty red one next to it, that’s more like it, phew…”. It was even fun listening to shrieks of “Yes, YES! Do you see him, he’ll be round the corner any second now, it’s EDWARD! Gosh, he is cuuuuute!”
So on some occasions my surprise was shared “Erik is Asian???”, “Taylor is Black???”. But there were other situations when I damned my co-viewers. The first and and most frequent was whenever Jasper appeared. For he is the “youngest vegetarian” of the Cullens he has the most problems with not having Bella as a snack. So everytime we see him he has this strangely unrelaxed, fixed expression on his face which makes him look involuntarily funny. Giggling girls galore, tends to take the seriousness out of a moment.
Dito on the scene where Bella has just been bitten by James and Edward is forced to make a decision: Letting the transformation continue, thus letting Bella become a vampire and, as he believes, lose her soul. Or sucking the venom out of her wrist and taking the chance of not being able to stop sucking and by this taking away her life.
Naturally, this is a keyscene, for the audience gets the first glimpse of Edward’s conflicted inside: On the one hand he loves Bella and would like to be with her forever, but on the other hand he doesn’t want her to be a “monster”, too.
We see, this situation, with Bella’s life at risk and not a lot of time left, Edward’s at the edge. Of course his contorted face and pressed voice show this, as Robert Pattison portrays Edward really well. But a teenage crowd doesn’t understand this, they find him funny and aren’t shy to show it. This is the downside of the big screen experience.
All in all I’m contend with the screen adaptation. I only missed the fact that there should have been more of Edward’s and Bella’s talks, where they shyly get closer to each other, and their question and answer days. Most of the actors were well picked. I would have pictured Carlisle a lot more like those 30+ models out of P&C catalogues, though he is described in the books as “barely being able to pass for 28 or 30″. Though Nikki Reed is pretty her Rosalie isn’t the stunning beauty I expected. I’m a huge Emmet fan, Kellan Lutz did a really nice impression of his childlike spirit, always looking for action.
Kristen Steward’s Bella wasn’t as annoying as her book-self sometimes tends to be, and all in all her pretty-but-not-stunning self fit the role well.
I’ll face the danger of sounding like a fangirl, but Robert Pattison? Oh my. When reading the book I couldn’t imagine how Edward’s crooked smile looks like, now it’s hard to get it out of my head. They did well in picking the 22 year old Pattison, a younger actor couldn’t have portrayed Edward, who’s already lived more than a hundred years. I didn’t like Pattison that much in “Harry Potter”, I thought him not pretty enough for playing Cedric. Don’t be fooled of the film’s poster and the chalky man it shows, the on screen Edward is an eye-candy. He brings this love for a girl that makes thousands of girls jealous and anxious of never finding anything like it, to life.
[...] Not your average vampire flick, worth a try even if you are not into the genre (or just if you to want to make head against the current Hollywood vampire hype – I am still looking forward to share a cinema with 98% lusty vampire lovin’ chicks – check out my wife’s review here) [...]