Twilight: A Vampire Movie

Twilight, for those of you not in the loop, is Buffy's worst nightmare.

It is the primary opus, in a crazily popular series of books (ala Harry Potter) about seventeen-year-old Isabella Swan who moves to Forks Washington and discovers her life in peril when she falls head over heels with a 90 year old vampire, no less, named Edward Cullen.

Twilight is reviewer proof because remarkable ticket sales have quickly surpassed the previous two Harry Potter movies, which is no small accomplishment, and assures theaters filled with screeching teenage girls.

Not since A Dark Knight has expectancy run quite so deep.

But the question is: is it a good movie?

I think I can sum it up most succinctly by rewording and old beer ad motto that went: 'those who like it will like it a lot!' Twilight is certainly bound to please the twihards, (that is, the pre-sold fans of the books.)

Robert Paterson, the obscure English actor engaged to play heartthrob vampire Edward Cullen incarnates the book's amatory blood sucker, and Christian Stewart does the genuine longing 'shtick' really well.

Catherine Hardwick, whose cinematic directorial career demonstrates her uncanny power to portray teen angst in movies like 13 and the Lords of Dogtown catches the beats of high school life by fencing in her supernatural characters with mediocre kids who hand-in surprisingly lifelike performances. She has condensed the 600 page book down to its staple elements, cut the fat, and maintained the most important component-- being that Edward Cullen goes against his natural impulse to kill because he loves Bella. In other words Hardwick has produced an amorous, romantic film that will charm to the book's fanatic audience.

For others, and that includes the Vampire-pedants, everybody recognizes that vampires cannot go out in the daytime, and would never have a giant crucifix in their homes, the movie may feel strangely stilted and anemic.

Anyone expecting fangs, or crazy vampire sex-scenes, will be disappointed. Horrifically speaking, it is a Halequin Romance.

And while the never-ending starry eyed craving between the two main characters teeters on silly caricature, without it there would be very little left.