Bella (Kristen Stewart) lives happily in Phoenix but is forced to relocate back to her home town of Forks, Washington, the wettest and most cloud covered city in the country. Moving in the middle of second semester of school, she is quickly thrown into a who’s who of the school by her new friends she makes upon starting up at school. Everything is the norm as a twelve year old’s view of high school, all except an odd family of kids that stick to themselves, the Cullen’s. Bella is first introduced to the only single member, as the rest of the siblings are oddly ‘together’, Edward (Robert Pattinson), who appears repulsed and disgusted by the sight, smell, and presence of her; so much so that he misses a week of school before coming back. Upon his reappearance, Edward, is fairly polite and charming, though remaining fairly awkward from time to time. They begin to form a bit of a friendship with seemingly potential for more, when an incident in the school parking lot causes Bella to begin to inquire about the history of the Cullen’s. She learns from here childhood friend, Jacob, that there is an old tale that the kids on the Indian reservation near town tell one another about how the Cullen’s were found a few hundred years ago hanging out in the forest and that they made a deal with his tribe, the Quileute, to let them go in exchange that they stay off their land. This sparks Bella’s interest/research even further which leads her to believe Edward and his family are vampires.
The reason the film was able to reach beyond its demographic though, has to be the great work by the two leads in the film. While the characters might have been a bit rushed, the actors did a fine job of bringing Bella and Edward to life. Kristen Stewart does a great job of conveying strength in Bella, showing little fear towards Edward, but maintaining an aura of curiosity and intrigue to him that works great for the film. Edward does some odd stuff during the courting process of this film and she nails the perfect balance between intrigue and a bit of what the hell in her. Robert Pattinson creates a nice, layered version of Edward as he perfectly captures the awkwardness and mixed emotions he feels balancing his feelings for Bella and his need for secrecy. Pattinson also brings a lot of good humor to the picture as well, and the comedy actually worked really well for the movie most of the time and I wish they would have injected a bit more solid dark humor jokes into the mix. Everyone else in the film does a good enough job, with the Cullen family members begging for further fleshing out in later films and I would love to see a more prominent role for Peter Facinelli as the head of the Cullen family in later films.
7.75/10
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no way! the worst part of this movie was Robert Pattinson's acting 101 shenanigans. It was like he was in some freshman theatre class and they said "okay, something smells bad- now act it out" and he grabs his nose and goes "pee. eww. this is. really. stinky." That's about the level of depth his performance had.
I agree with what you said about the end being hurried but that's honestly how the book was. In the book the "climax" came out of nowhere and was rushed.
Also I like what you said about the high school being a younger kids version of high school and I definitely agree there.
But yeah, I laughed my ass off at this movie. Then I felt like an asshole because the 12 year old girls sitting next to us were crying. I'm just surprised you rated it so high. You're always looking for the good in movies. Even movies that don't really deserve it.