Team Edward

Three guesses what movie I saw this weekend and the first two don't count.

The truth is, I was as excited to see "Twilight" as The Child and her friend J were. I've read all the books and while I haven't been going on line looking for every bit of every interview or fan vid ever created, I have been hopeful that the film would be worth seeing. This is one of those wickets; not unlike the one the Harry Potter people had to unstick. When you have a series that is as popular and well-loved as that, or this, you had better make sure you do your level best to get it right. If you don't you risk being torn into a million pieces and being burned so the pieces don't rejoin.

Even if you don't live with a teenage girl, you can't help but have heard about the Twilight series, written by Stephanie Meyers. The books follow a very human teenager named Bella, who falls in love with a vampire. Edward and his "family" are all "vegetarians"...they have trained themselves not to drink human blood. But that doesn't mean a relationship with a sweet smelling human is going to be easy.

What's great about the books (each one better than the last, imho) is that Bella is a regular teenager. She's smart and pretty but she doesn't have a ton of self-confidence. She doesn't see herself as particularly capable or lovely and she's a terrible klutz. Then she meets this absolutely beautiful boy and falls in love with him. The complication of his being undead and her being mortal is only the beginning. Hey. The course of true love...

The movie hits all the high points of the book without "wasting" any time on exposition or back story. (This distressed The Child because she thinks the stories of how the Cullen "family" found each other are integral to the tale). The focus is decidedly on Bella and Edward. Fortunately, this is successful because Kristin Stewart ("Panic Room", "Into the Wild") and Robert Pattison ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire") are perfectly cast. Ms. Stewart is Bella, with her cloud of dark hair and soulful eyes. She registers perfectly a discomfort within her own skin, which vanishes whenever she's with Edward. She also does a good job of slipping and bumping into stuff. (Bella's clumsiness really is an important part of her character and I'm glad they didn't leave that out. Perfect teenagers are such a bore).

Pattison, as Edward, is equally compelling. It doesn't hurt that the young man is absolutely beautiful. Edward is a tortured character, obviously. A) he doesn't know whether to kiss or drink his girlfriend and 2) he views himself as a monster even though he doesn't kill humans. He is, in other words, not 100% down with being undead. Pattison does the dark, brooding thing really well.

My biggest problem with the movie, frankly, were the effects. They were, in this day and age, pretty lame. The vampires of Meyers' creation are very fast and powerful while being supremely elegant at the same time. The special effects folks just couldn't figure out how to convey both speed and grace in a convincing way. And, for those of you who have read the books, they didn' t really get the sparkly thing right, either. I'll give 'em snaps for one thing, though...there's a scene where Bella and Edward are high in the top of a tree and that was for real and done without CGI. It's awesome.

The film was shot in the Northwest (mostly on the Olympic Peninsula and a bit in Portland) and the misty, moisty beauty of the area is beautifully captured.

Finally, the trick to adapting a series is creating a film story that stands on its own, without needing to read the books. I think the parties involved with "Twilight" have done that successfully and the ending of the film left no doubt that sequels are being discussed. For fans of the books, this is good news. What I'm not convinced about is whether anyone who hasn't read the books would particularly care about this movie. It's hardly a waste of 2 hours but with so many other good films out right now, you could probably wait to Netflix it and be ok.


The Czarina gives "Twilight"


out of five koihead.