Monday, December 1, 2008

Movie review - Twilight

It's been a while since I've had anything to say about entertainment. Not because I haven't been watching movies, but rather that life has intervened and most of the movies I've been watching are ones I've already seen. I do have a list to get through, but wanted to start back up with a movie still in the theaters: Twilight.

Obviously, I'm not the target audience for this film. Keep that in mind.

I understand the vampire conventions. I read a lot of books and watch a lot of movies. The Twilight series is one I've never read, so I went into the movie with no preconceptions.

As a story concept, the first movie in this series is solid: Girl moves to new town, girl falls for hot boy, hot boy is a 100 year old vampire, issues ensue which only strengthen the bond between them.

Nothing spectacularly new. Yes there are "twists" such as that the vampire is part of a small clan which are "vegetarian" vampires, which means they don't "eat" human blood and sunlight causes them to go all glittery as part of their predatory capabilities, but, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Angel" "Bill" from True Blood, "Edward" from Twilight is a new generation of vampire: self aware as a killer and choosing to reject his societal norms trying to integrate into the human society.

Still, the movie had a lot of issues some of which come from catering to an audience with preconceptions.

Like the Harry Potter series, Twilight has a built in audience of millions who've already read this book and, most likely, the entirety of the series.

So the writers and director are left in a really precarious position: How far can you go into the depths of the book be it with subtle nuances or outright display without alienating the people who are seeing the movie because they were intrigued by the trailer but haven't read the books, heard of the books but know nothing about them, or are being dragged, possibly kicking and screaming, by someone who is flat out in love with the books?

For the first two on the former list, you’re really stuck. Go too in depth and you lose the first time viewer. Don’t go in depth enough and the fan who is your built in audience will not be dragging their friends to see it when they go for the second or third time.

From someone coming into this world with no preconceptions and no understanding of the world, I thought the movie missed on a lot of levels plot wise.

I know I’m not one for spoilers, but there are some specifics I need to complain about so………..

********SPOLIER ALERT********

For someone just coming into the books, I still have no idea if the sheriff father knows of the existence of vampires. There are intimations that he most likely does, then again, he seems so clueless about the nature of the attacks that I have to wonder. This plot point needs to be clarified in the movie.
Bitchy vampire sister. I get it. She hates our heroine because she wants Edward and will be the antagonist for the next movie. I thought the completely non subtle way we were hammered over the head with the intimation she’s going to cause trouble in the next movie was waaaaaaaaaaaay overdone at the end.
Native American Werewolves. It’s implied but we never see them. Maybe they aren’t integral to this plot, but they are implied. We needed more background than a Google Indian legend found on Google. At one point during the movie we are told there is a complication to Edward and Bella’s relationship because of the Native American friends her dad has but it comes to nothing. You needed to emphasize this thread more, especially since I am willing to be it becomes a big issue later on.
Teenie Boppers. This movie has them and there are subplots involving them, however they sort of come and go throughout the movie and usually in an intrusive way. This was one of those plot areas I felt probably had to be in for the fan folk as well as the overall story line, but was so poorly executed that it distracted from the overall experience.
Points for realism. Ok, I get that you are messing with the vampire codex to explain why they don’t show themselves in sunlight in this day and age. However, even in the “rainiest place in the United States,” you are going to have more than 8 days with sunlight and that seems to be “the line” high schools draw these days for absences. Yes, “daddy” is a doctor and could write them medical notes, but no school in the world is going to let the kids out of school that much and let them pass/graduate.
Make up your mind what movie you are making. Once again, it’s based on a book with probably a lot more back story and I know that my wife insists there are no new plot ideas but, as near as I can tell you have the following movies happening all together:

A: Ten Things I Hate About You: They combined the “Bad boy with a lot of rumors surrounding him romantic interest” with the “new kid in school” romance element.
B: She’s All That: “Outcast finds a place with the popular crowd.”
C: Karate Kid: “New kid in town triumphs over adversity and background to get the hot, unattainable rich kid.”
D: The Lost Boys and Near Dark: “New kid in town hooks up with hot vampire and deals with integration issues with the long standing members of the pack.”
E: Sixteen Candles: “Outcast Girl gets the hot guy with the cool car.”

And those are just the teen romance movies.

Then you have the secondary conflict.

A: The Terminator: “James will not stop until Bella is dead and is much stronger and more powerful than the puny human.”
B: The Terminator 2: “Strong non human and counterpart fight over the human doing untold damage to the scenery in the process.”
C: Any martial arts film from Hong Kong or the USA after about 1995: It’s all about the wirework.




*********END PLOT SPOILERS********



So, with all that out, lets talk effects:

Ok, this is a medium budget film.

But, there are no “A” list actors in the film.

So say the film had a small (approximately 10 million) budget for effects. I had small quibbles with the strength displays, with the car scene from the trailer being the best of them and very well done. What bugged me the most is the “super speed” effects which were done throughout the film. In specific, it’s the legs. Every single one of those shots were done in low light or in forest. There was NO (pardon my yelling) reason to show the legs of the vampires as they did the super speed thing. It looked cheesy and detracted from the film. In every shot I can remember, there would have been no detraction from the scene to either do a combination of two things:

1. Give us a first person POV not looking at people’s legs. Bella, as she clings to Edward and he runs through the woods. That scene would have been enhanced by a first person POV of her looking over Edwards head as they race through the woods. Yes, it was done in Return of the Jedi. And, you know what, it worked! What they did with the wide angle pan shot was make things look silly. The same could have been done for James’ run through the woods/racing the car and, once again, you add tension to a scene that should have had tension, instead of pulling us out of the scene with the silliness.
2. If you’re going to do a side pan shot, make them a blur with flashes of hair and clothing color to remind us who is running. By having the environment react to the vampire racing through it as opposed to showing them directly, you add texture to the shot without overdoing it.


Makeup:

I have to mention the makeup especially on Carlisle: Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overdone with the whiteface. He looked like a guy with a lot of white pancake makeup on or his face was covered in zinc oxide, not that he was someone who never saw the sun. I don’t care if I’m bleeding out, having a massive coronary and have a limb held on only by a flap of skin all at the same time, if he walked into my room as a doctor, I’m running out of the room.

So what about sound? As you can probably deduce if you’ve read any of my earlier reviews, I’m an audio junkie. To me, sound matters. This movie has it’s ups and downs. First, I have to give the director credit for making a teenage movie without a single obvious and intrusive pop song tie in (there may have been one, but it was so well done I couldn’t remember it.) The orchestration underlying most scenes was well placed.

But!

(There’s always a but.)

Music enhances the mood. The orchestration used throughout the majority of the film was trying for haunting and mysterious and came across as slow and plodding. In the few scenes there was tension or action, we had the same slow paced orchestration. I’m not asking for Rossini or Paganini in the action scenes but picking up the pace in the orchestration would have, once again enhanced the scenes and further drawn the viewer in. Instead, we plodded along with the music and were distanced from the tension.

And that underlies a major problem in the movie: Pacing.

This movie was so unevenly paced, I was unsure whether I was watching a comedy, a romance, a mystery or an action film. Once again, the movie couldn’t make up it’s mind and moved in fit’s and spurts which distracted from the story.

Finally, the acting.

I’m tying this into the directing in this case, because this film is filled with actors I am familiar with and know their capabilities and ranges (with the exception of the leads, of which I only knew one as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire which wasn’t a “stretch” type of role.) I think the best acting in this film came from the teenagers at the high school. They were real, plausible and genuine. As for the vampires, older townsfolk and vampires, with few exceptions which were scene based, they seemed to be plodding through the film without much belief in the role they were playing. The one adult exception would be Gil Birmingham who played the Native American dad the wheelchair. He was likeable, had interactions with other characters that seemed to bring out some semblance of believable humanity as opposed to looking at someone acting a role.

Now, less you think I despised this movie, the truth is, I enjoyed large parts of it, however, as a whole, the movie was somewhat of a mess and was more on the line of "wait for video" rather than the matinee price I paid.

Still, it did meet my criterion for fun, and I was entertained.