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Perhaps the biggest single flaw in the entire film is 21-year-old Robert Pattinson in the role of Edward Cullen. The British-born actor's self-taught American accent seems to be a bit too gruff and rough around the edges for a faithful portrayal of the character. Pattinson's portrayal lacks the refined, articulate, eloquence found in the book. Meyer describes one of those otherworldly types most of us remember from high school - the kind of surreal perfection that sits in the next row during biology class breathing different air than everyone else. Pattinson comes off less as a creature of extreme beauty and more as some sort of towering, perverted adult semi-gothic Eddie Munster who never managed to graduate from high school. It's a character he carries off quite well, but it's NOT Edward Cullen.

Further complicating things is the aforementioned script, which far too comprehensively covers the overall plot of the novel to be able to spend a satisfying amount of time on any one moment. The episodic nature of the novel is lost here, which is particularly disappointing as it relates to the romance at the center of the story. As stated before, the believability of the romance between Bella and Edward is somewhat tenuously rendered in a full-length novel. By limiting those romantic moments between the two that are there to help establish the connection between them, the film keeps the romance at the center of the story from being believable in any palpable way.

While the film fails as believable romance, it also fails as a memorable vampire film. The vampire effects are competently rendered for the film, but they aren't framed impressively enough to give them enough intensity to seem as dangerous or wonderful as they are meant to come across in the novel. Even the vampire baseball game, which is meant to emphasize their abilities, is presented here without any real love of the fantasy of the premise.

The Verdict

The film version of Twilight consistently fails to deliver on the novel's potential for visually dynamic cinema. Glossing over much of the interaction between the two leads, the script fails to deliver the emotional intensity of the romance at the heart of the story. Some of the scenes come across quite competently and Kirsten Stewart is exceedingly believable as the main character, but this doesn't go far enough to excuse the rest of the film's mediocrity. While it is destined to be a huge commercial success, the movie version of Twilight probably won't be remembered all that well once the inevitable series of films ends, probably somewhere around the mid-2010s.

The outlook isn't that good for the novel, either. The simplicity of marrying traditional juvenile romantic fiction with a modern vampire story is fun enough for the right people, but without much else to recommend it, Meyer's novel will probably fade out of popularity and join the legions of genre novels cluttering the shelves of used bookstores all over the country in a few years.

All of this being said, there is a strong enough fan base for this series that there will always be people who think of Edward and Bella as friends. As time progresses, the film may be just the introduction some people need to make the commitment to reading the entire series.

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