OC Screenwriters Association

The following took place between 11 PM and 1:02 AM: I watched Twilight on pay-per-view. I was emotionally uninvolved enough to read a few chapters of my book, respond to emails and talk to my son about changing his major. That said, I did not miss a thing. So on the plus side, one can definitely multi-task and watch Twilight simultaneously.

It took 48 minutes for Bella to figure out that Edward is a vampire. I timed it. Now, I knew Edward was a vampire from the get-go and I haven’t even read the books. I just paid attention to the movie posters. It was also a no-brainer that Bella was going to figure out that Edward was a vampire. What I don’t know is why we couldn’t get on with it, but instead are forced to endure the most inane dialogue ever uttered in a teenage movie, watch shot after soaring shot and then even more footage of the beautiful Washington state’s forestry (I’m wondering if there was some grease from the state tourism bureau?), wooden, goofy characters that would accidentally fall off the face of the earth if they actually existed and a tiny threat of a plot that went nowhere while Bella pondered, slept, moped, Google’d, checked Amazon online for a book, picked up the book days later from an out of the way bookshop (saving $3.99 in shipping charges, I guess)and then went home and Google’d some more. Ah-ha! It’s all beginning to add up: Edward never eats, has super human strength, is a lovely shade of death skull white, ditches school when the sun breaks through the clouds and has icy-cold hands. You gotta get up pretty early in the morning to get one past ol’ Bella!

Okay, okay, here’s some of my favorite dialogue (verbatim):

Edward: So, how are you liking the rain?

Bella blinks, swallows, and does a double take, staring at Edward long seconds trying to assimilate what he has just said.

Bella: Uh…did you just ask me if I liked the rain?

Wait, wait, here’s another gem:

Reservation Kid on the beach: (to Bella) The Cullins…they know they aren’t allowed on (whatever Indian tribe’s) land.

Later, Bella and Jimmy walk along the beach.

Bella: So, what did he mean, Cullins aren’t allowed here?

Jimmy: Oh, you caught that, huh?

Because, you know, it does seem unlikely most of the time that Bella actually comprehends the English language.

Okay, so aside from issues with dialogue my puppy could have written, weak characters, and lumbering pacing, there’s the antagonist, or the lack there of. It’s a freakin’ vampire flick, where’s our bad guy(s)? Oh, here they are two-thirds of the way through the movie, a terrible trio of vamps (if a vamp has any kind of accent, you know they are trouble, it’s all in the rule book) comes strolling through the woods and run into Bella, Edward and the rest of his peaceful “vegetarian” vampire crew as they play baseball in a thunderstorm (I know, right?) The nice vampires tell the skanky vampires to please quit eating people in the neighboring towns, its really making them look bad. The Skanks say they are sorry, now can we play baseball with you? Sure, ha, ha, ha…then James, the hot white bread skank, catches a wiff of Bella and thinks she’s a Dodger dog. Game over. Edward gets Bella the hell out, but not before they have a minor tiff because he wants to make sure she has her seatbelt on before he takes off (I swear I am not making this up. I’d like to think it would be better if I did.)

But Bella is not safe and never will be because James is a major dick of all vamps and he has to track and kill Bella now just to piss off Edward because that’s the way he is. And Edward just knows this. After all, he and James talked for 30 seconds and had never seen each other before, so of course it’s now on to the death. Great villain set up…NOT! James comes and goes and oh well. It’s back to our regularly scheduled teenage melodrama crap.

Edward’s big life (or undead) lesson here is in order to save Bella’s life he learns when to stop sucking (unlike this movie). Bella blindly trusts him because…he’s cute and so cool and all. Sure he’s a killer; now she wants to be one too! But, why? Her parents are divorced yet love her (although they lack anything remotely resembling parental qualities) she does seem make friends easily and is gorgeous. But oh no, Bella wants to be undead so she can make it with the cute guy. Because they never can, he can’t risk losing control. It’s all so desperately romantically lame and unrequited.

I guess that’s why the little girls understand.

So, two things: with so many excellent vampire franchises out there (Buffy and Angel, True Blood, Blade, Underworld, even Dark Shadows for crying out loud), you better have a pretty damn good story, characters, set of rules, etc. We’ve seen pretty much everything in Twilight and a hell of a lot better. Second of all, shouldn’t a movie compel me to read the source material if I haven’t already? Watchmen, flawed as it was, sure did. I swear, if I see randomly see anyone reading a Twilight tome, I will rip it out of their hands and stomp upon it, ala John Belushi in Animal House.

What I liked: the fact that Twilight vamps stay out of the sunlight because it will reveal their true physical selves, which is all extra sparkly, like diamonds. And, a pretty good soundtrack. Also, Washington State sure is pretty.

Four out of ten on this one, and if I have to watch it again, it may not even get that many!