Twilight (2008)
Twilight is a success of monolithic proportions. You can’t move for want of screaming fans, abrasive merchandise and incessant natter regarding Robert Pattinson’s obnoxiously beautiful face.
I for one was happy to ignore this repellent b*ll*cks, contently drifting through my own bubbled existence only stopping to observe the phenomenon in the most brief and unsubstantial of circumstances. Recently however it has become impossible to blindside this nationwide outbreak.
No longer can I hold a steady conversation with someone without them mentioning this baffling franchise.
So finally, without any further option, I decided to see what the fuss is all about.
What you are about to read is an extended review of the first Twilight film, or, what I affectionately like to call, Jonesy the Cat’s Analytical Rape of Twilight the Movie and Beyond.
Translating Twilight from page to screen was always going to be a tricky operation. The book functions by way of audience projection, the
characters so blank, bland and without purpose that it allows the reader to place their own personalities onto them.
What this essentially means is that Twilight is Dungeons and Dragons for emo kids, a slice of role-playing literature that appeals to the hearts of the awkward and the lonely, or in other words, teenagers.
The imperative danger of creating a cinematic adaptation is in changing what fundamentally works about the book. No longer will Edward Cullen and Bella Swan be blank vessels that you can pilot, now they will be given faces, faces alien to yours.
In an obvious but undeniably lucrative move by the studio, the roles were filled by the infuriatingly attractive Robert Pattinson and Kirsten Stewart. The clever part of this being, an audience doesn’t care if you tamper with the characters as long as they look pretty as a result of it.
Legions of wailing fans have bleated out the many ways in which they would like to physically ravage the lead actors. This is, however, a hilarious irony considering the movie’s obvious and offensive abstinence moral.
Edward is ferociously attracted to Bella. The smell of her blood intoxicates him making it impossible to resist her wooden charms (though you would never guess considering the actors complete lack of sexual tension). However he will not bite her until they are married as the action will transform her into one of his vampiric brood.
The metaphor here is stick thin, embarrassing and bizarre. To strip it down to its bare bones is comically revealing; Edward will not EXCHANGE FLUIDS with Bella BEFORE MARRIAGE as it will FUNDEMENTALLY CHANGE her when it does. There you go kiddies, as if being a teenager isn’t confusing, frustrating and hard enough, now you are supposed to feel guilty about your base, animal urges.
Let me clarify (as if I needed to), sex is a completely natural thing for two people of consenting age to engage in, to demonize in the way Twilight does is not only stupid but reductive. But remember, stay safe…
Beyond the thinly veiled abstinence text, the film also offends due to an abundance of waist high plot holes.
To illuminate but one of these is nothing short of hilarious.
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