Twilight (2008) [PG-13] ***

When her mother marries a minor-league baseball player, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) decides to leave her sunny Phoenix, Arizona home, and move to rainy, forested Forks, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula, to live with her father Charlie (Billy Burke), the town's police chief.

Bella doen't expect anything in her life to change, but then she meets the handsome and mysterious Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Like Bella, Edward is a junior at Forks High School, but he's not like anyone she's ever met. His eyes change color, he exhibits remarkable strength and speed, his skin is incredibly cold, and he seems to be able to read minds. As Bella falls in love with Edward, she discovers that he's a vampire who hasn't aged since 1918. 

Based on the first of a series of novels by Stephenie Meyer, the film's sets and special effects are impressive, and there's genuine chemistry between Stewart and Pattinson, however the story's grand irony is that Edward believes he's a freak and a monster, and won't transform Bella into a vampire because he loves her too much, while Bella wants to be transformed so she will become immortal and can spend eternity together with Edward. So... will he bite her or won't he?

Twilight will satisfy uncritical viewers who thirst (pun intended) for the vampire genre, and will especially thrill swooning teenage girls who yearn to be bitten on the neck by someone closely resembling Robert Pattinson. 

To add to the film's attraction, the film studio's marketing department worked very hard during the entire Twilight film series production - roughly four years - to convince us there was an off-screen locationship between Stewart and Pattinson, that developed into a serious romance. Given that Stewart was a practical, work-focused actress and Pattinson, was an inveterate womanizer, it was inevitable that once filming was done, their relationship would have to end. But how to make this happen? I know... let's have Stewart be involved in an affair with her film producer, broken-hearted Pattinson kicks her out and the relationship is over. Brilliant !!!

Labels: drama, fantasy, high-school, romance, teenager   
Internet Movie Database    
Metacritic 56/100    
Tomatometer (critics=49, viewers=82)   
Blu-ray