I'll skip the usual "abusive relationship" rant. You know, Edward's too controlling, Bella co-dependent, it's anti-feminist, yada yada yada. All the stuff that's a little more forgivable the way it's explained in the books, but even then isn't very healthy. Meh... I agree with a lot of it, but it's all been said, all over the internet. Let's just talk about the movie itself.
A full review would be useless at this point in the series. If you liked the first one enough to see the second one, then you're probably committed to the series. This property is such a "love it or hate it" sort of thing, that my opinion isn't going to persuade anyone.
That said, I didn't really care for it. It had some decent action scenes, and a few funny moments here and there. But... where do I begin? The acting was terrible, most of the dialogue was bland, the historical flashbacks weren't convincing, there were bits of my arch-nemesis the shaky-cam, and it was still 90% shallow angst and hard-to-swallow romance. Oh, and lots of posing: "Hey, let's all stand perfectly still and stare into the woods, it'll look great on a thermos later."
Also, the lighting was bad. Actually, no, the lighting was too good. There were a couple of scenes where it didn't look even remotely overcast, yet Edward was outside in front of muggles, sans sparkle.
I'm not sold on they way they showed vampires getting smashed during the fight scenes, like they were made out of marble. I know the books always described the vamps as being hard like stone, but on film it looked sort of silly. I realize that the good guys were hitting them incredibly hard to make them shatter like that, and it's supposed to make them look even tougher, but it actually made them look kind of fragile. Like if Edward were to fall down the stairs, he would break into a million sparkly pieces.
Anyway, I'm not a Twihard, and I'm not the movie's target demographic. So it's no surprise that I didn't really like it. The action scenes were nice, in fact they were my favorite scenes in the series so far. But everything else was just boring.
However...
To be honest, Twilight-haters are actually annoying me more than the Twilight Saga at the moment. Seriously, don't these people get tired of saying the same things over and over? Not to mention all the critics who obviously only watched the trailers, and the nit-pickers who must have missed large amounts of dialogue. "I hate how Edward is so rude to Bella when he first meets her!" Well, if you'd read the books or at least listened to the dialogue, you'd know why.
I read all four books, telling myself the entire time that I was only reading it so that I'd have ammo to insult it later. But to be honest, I really didn't have a bad time. It's not great, and I don't see how it got to be so popular, but it's not the unreadable rubbish people think it is. And I still respect the opinion of those who love it.
"Oh no! This series that I don't plan to watch or read isn't very good! Since not being into something popular makes me feel stupid, the only way I can cope is to convince other people not to like it! Waah!" Seriously dudes, you need to accept that different people like different things, and that's okay. Repeat after me: "I don't particularly care for (insert name of movie, tv show, sport, video game system, web browser, font, religion, or sexual position), but that doesn't mean it sucks. It just means that it's not for me. I'll let other people enjoy it if they want to."
So... yeah, I think I'll alienate both sides today.
I guess I should be glad that Hollywood finally gave these uncreative, whiny, pathetic, brain-dead losers something to cry about besides the Star Wars prequels. I ranted earlier about people who complain that remakes are ruining their childhood memories. (My opinion: If your memories are that easy to damage, you might want to see a neurologist. Or just don't watch the remakes.) Well, the same idiots are worried that Meyer's sparkly vampires are somehow going to erase all the previous vampire stories from their minds, or that the popularity of this series means that people will stop making non-sparkly vampire movies. Short answer: Quit worrying and grow up.
But most importantly, there are a lot of very intelligent people who happen to enjoy the Twilight series. They don't take it seriously, and they have noticed the same problems with the series that you like to moan about. But for whatever reason, they still enjoy the story. You probably know more of these people than you think, because they're afraid to admit it. You'll get less ribbing coming out of the closet as a transvestite furry LARPer than as an adult Twilight fan. So keep that in mind: when you go off on Twilight, you are insulting your friends. Keep it up, and you won't have any. (And knowing is half the battle.)
As long as we're on the subject of Twilight, I would like to give a free plug for Rifftrax, the best way to enjoy bad movies (and even some good ones). For those who don't know: Do you remember Mystery Science Theater 3000, the show where a guy and two robots made fun of bad sci-fi movies? Well, those same guys are at it again, except now they're riffing mainstream movies.
Since they can't get the rights for these movies as easily, you just buy the audio track with their comments. Simply play the Rifftrax MP3 while watching the DVD, and follow their instructions to sync them.
Well, one of the best Rifftrax is the one for Twilight. You can watch a sample here. I've watched that Rifftrax several times, and it never gets old. They also have one for New Moon, and I'm sure they'll have one for Eclipse the moment it hits DVD.
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