Reviews for the vampire film Twilight have started to pop up online. After around 70 reviews the movie has a rotten 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, however despite the reviews the movie will probably be the best movie ever made for hardcore fans. Although I’m sure there will be a small majority of fans who will think it didn’t meet their expectations.
Here is an overview of the reviews so far:
Vampire purists may shudder, and the male population in general may grimace, but, despite the missteps, Twilight succeeds as an action-oriented modern-day fairy tale with a strong romantic appeal.
TWILIGHT is a Harlequin Romance for thirteen year old girls. They will look past the poor pacing, the not quite so special, special effects and the overly long running time. It looks good enough and has pleasant enough leads to warrant the many squeals the audience I saw it with gave. But I will say that the locations were quite beautiful so it only adds to the attractive cast.
Getting Catherine Hardwicke to direct Twilight was a shrewd move, because the youthquake specialist of Thirteen treats teen confusion without a trace of condescension: She gets their grand passions and prickly defense mechanisms. She has reconjured Meyer’s novel as a cloudburst mood piece filled with stormy skies, rippling hormones, and understated visual effects. What Hardwicke can’t quite triumph over is the book’s lackluster plot. On screen, Twilight is repetitive and a tad sodden, too prosaic to really soar. But Hardwicke stirs this teen pulp to a pleasing simmer.
Twilight, at least for a select group of ladies, has been THE most anticipated movie of 2008 – and their wait is finally over. The question is: Was it worth it?
For them, yes.
For the rest of us? Eh, not so much.
It’s very much to the credit of director Catherine Hardwicke and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg that “Twilight” the movie really gets this. This film succeeds, likely unreservedly for teens and in a classic guilty pleasure kind of way for adults, because it treats high school emotions with unwavering, uncompromising seriousness. Much as you may not want to, you have to acknowledge what’s been accomplished here.
Chud:
I almost feel bad for Twilight as a movie. It’s cheap and shoddy and often mediocre, and if it had just come out and been a standard, middle of the road teen release, people might have looked at it with a less critical eye. Instead it comes into theaters as the blockbuster-elect, selling out shows a week in advance and fomenting teenybopper riots at publicity events.
