Twilight

Twilight (2008)

[No]
Extremely Trashy

First things first: despite the fact that I am 17, of the female persuasion and into vampires, I have not partaken of the Twilight books. I read Harry Potter, that was depressing enough for me.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot (do such people exist? If so, why read this?), it's about a young woman (Kristen Stewart) who falls in love with a vampire (Robert Pattinson). That's pretty much it. The other plot elements seem like they're just thrown in there as filler. Basically, Cullen there rescues her from every dangerous situation because she (being a girl) couldn't possibly take care of herself.

I was pretty surprised that this movie was written and directed by women and yet all of the female characters were either weak and helpless or just the girlfriends of the males. It was, like, the reaction to Buffy or something. The girl in this is a total waif but she gets the guy (more or less). Buffy is a strong, independant woman who kicks ass all over town, and ends up alone by the end of the show. Hm.

Now, don't get me wrong, I actually don't mind sexism in movies, just as long as we can all sit back and laugh at how dumb the men who made the movie were. So in this case it is not the content of the film which bothered me - it is the context in which it is received by its fans (again, haven't read the book so I'm solely judging the movie here). Young girls want to be like Bella (Bella - Bela? Hahaha). It's worrisome.

Okay. So I knew that I was going to feel this way about the movie (I am familiar enough with the books to have an idea of what's going on), but I watched it because 1) I'm into vampire flicks, 2) it was at the store and 3) I was hoping there would be some hot guys in it. I mean, it's the chickiest flick ever, hot guys are mandatory.

I will admit my definition of 'hot' is a little unconvention al, but I didn't find any of the dudes in this movie particularly attractive. Robert Pattinson was just creepy and as for the other vampires, I couldn't shake the thought of 30 Days of Night when it came to them. Go figure. Actually, I did really like girl's dad (Billy Burke). He seemed like my kind of guy.

Anyway, apart from that I thought the movie was pretty well made. The art direction was awesome and I really liked Kristen Stewart. She was appealing and cute.

Overall, the movie was better than I expected it to be, but I still found it sort of offensive.

END

Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke. Written by: Melissa Rosenberg, based on the novel by Stephanie Meyer. Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Peter Facinelli, Cam Gigandet, Elizabeth Reaser, Taylor Lautner.