Less Than The Sum Of Its Parts, The Twilight Saga Holds Together Poorly.

| | | The Good: Moments of concept, Portrayal of young love, Cinematography
The Bad: Underdeveloped characters, Melodrama, Stiff acting, Belabored plot
The Basics: The Twilight Saga starts as a charming tale of love between a mortal and an undead individual and drags out a dismal series of conflicts for multiple movies.


There are few movie series’ that have been produced in recent memory that have both such loyal fans and such rabid detractors as The Twilight Saga. Based upon a tremendously popular book series that pretty much defined the contemporary teen paranormal romance genre, the cinematic Twilight Saga was one of the smartest bets by the studios in recent memory. It came with a build-in audience, had a sufficient franchise to draw out and had the potential for mass appeal. And it worked: the success of the first two films made household names of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner, as well as launched the career of a number of the secondary performers in the films, and inspired the studio to split the final film into two to milk the fan base for additional money and keep the “phenomenon” alive.

But the same things that made the series seem initially strong also gave so much for the detractors to rant about: the films, which feature vampire and werewolf characters, were remarkably bloodless and for a great romance epic, the main couple was shockingly sexless. The acting was mixed and the fact that the film could not keep a consistent director to maintain a singular vision for the films may have worked against it (especially on the press circuit). For my part, I look at what is directly in front of me. Having sat down and rewatched the entire cinematic rendition of The Twilight Saga, there are several things that stand out to me now, looking at the work as a whole. As it will inevitably be viewed as a solid Saga (shocking that when Breaking Dawn, Part 2 was announced for DVD and Blu-Ray, no collector’s series set was announced simultaneously!), it behooves one to consider the entire work.

The Twilight Saga is a rare example where the parts, when put together, make something significantly less than the films on their own. Allow me to explain.

First, The Twilight Saga consists of the films:
Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn, Part I
Breaking Dawn, Part 2

For those unfamiliar with The Twilight Saga, the five films follow the exploits of Bella Swan, innocent, pale klutzy high school student who moves from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington when her mother wants to travel more with her new boyfriend. Forks, a mist-covered rural community, is where Bella’s father lives and works as a sheriff. There, Bella meets the mysterious Edward Cullen. Edward, she quickly learns, is a vampire, but a friendly one. Bella and Edward begin a romance, which puts them in danger when a roving trio of vampires comes through and starts killing humans and attacks Bella.

On Bella’s eighteenth birthday, there is an incident and Edward abandons her, ostensibly for her own safety. At that point, Bella rekindles her friendship with Jacob Black, a local who she slowly learns is a werewolf. Jacob’s protective instinct kicks in and while Bella prevents Edward from killing himself so he is no longer tormented by his love for Bella, the attempt draws the attention of the powerful Italian vampires, the Volturi. The Volturi come to Forks shortly thereafter when the villainous Victoria raises an army of vampires to destroy the Cullens and the werewolves and vampires work together to protect Bella and put down the threat of the rogue vampire clan.

After Bella graduates high school, she and Edward get married and during their honeymoon, the unthinkable happens: Bella gets pregnant from Edward and the spawn is something no one quite understands.

What struck me most about rewatching The Twilight Saga all together was what a weak link New Moon (which I rather enjoyed when it originally was released) was and just what a forced sense of conflict the Saga possesses. The initial villains are dispatched fairly quickly and make way for a far less sensible group of villains. The Volturi are visually menacing and creepy beyond belief, but they are basically superpower vampires who claim to be working to preserve the vampires and keep them off the humans’ radar while being the most obtrusive group of vampires: while the Cullens and the other vampires seen in the Saga generally blend in, the Volturi look like out-of-date elves who kill humans with startling regularity.

The love triangle (a term I loathe because it seldom is actually true – and is not in The Twilight Saga, as there is no emotional connection between Edward and Jacob) between Bella and Edward and Bella and Jacob seems increasingly forced as the film series goes on. In fact, outside of most of New Moon, it is painfully clear to everyone save Jacob that Bella has chosen Edward as her love interest. Even more than any problems with Kristen Stewart’s (who plays Bella) acting, Bella becomes a problematic character for the way she makes her choice, yet keeps stringing Jacob along.

Ironically, Eclipse, which might be the least-respected of the films, is a stronger link in the storytelling. With a compelling villain, a cool effect (the battles in this film are bigger and actually have significance) and a real test for the Edward/Bella relationship where Edward’s solution is not simply to run away, Eclipse actually stands up as a solid and engaging film. It is, when viewed as a whole Saga, also the high water mark of the films.

The final two films seem like much more of a coda comparatively. They seem like a necessary evil to the story, as opposed to a vital chapter, a simple fleshing out of the promise at the climax of Eclipse as opposed to an engaging end to the story. Here is why: the wedding is an inevitable, obvious plot point that was pretty much foreseeable the moment Edward returned to Bella in New Moon. The incident with the Volturi is a forced plot point – in a perfect world with the seemingly endless financial resources of the Cullens and the fact that the Volturi are in Italy, Bella and Edward could have easily avoided them for all eternity – and the conception of Renesmee seems an artful dodge for an audience obviously not prepared for an actual adult relationship. In other words, the first year of most real marriages is, frankly, hell (after the Honeymoon period wears off). It takes a real love and patience to survive the first year of a marriage as two people give up doing everything their own way and figure out how to do things “the Us way.” That, however, is not what the audience who wants to gush over an immortal love between a hundred plus year-old man and an eighteen year-old woman wants to watch. So, the writers and directors provide a much more literal hell (and a less-than-subtle admonishment about the dangers of sexuality!) when Bella’s first lovemaking produces a monstrous pregnancy that (among other things) shatters Bella’s spine and leaves her with becoming a vampire as her only viable chance of survival. Instead of taking the fantasy of immortal love and making it seem more real, The Twilight Saga makes love seem more preposterous and uncomfortable and dangerous.

The Twilight Saga has somewhat inconsistent direction but, oddly enough, a consistent sense of spectacle and quality of cinematography that makes the movies eminently watchable. The pacing for the Saga is off and the acting is inconsistent. However, while Kristen Stewart gets the awkward nature of Bella Swan right in Twilight, it is not until the Breaking Dawn movies that she is given more room to express range, so she goes through most of the Saga stiff and portraying boredom over passion. In rewatching the Saga, it is actually Robert Pattinson who stands out for the poor acting. Whereas Taylor Lautner portrays Jacob Black as an invested, interesting, and passionate guy, Pattinson’s role seems to be simply to show up. Edward Cullen is cold, passionless, and frightfully dull and Pattinson does not make the role any warmer. Instead, he is stiff, gives Stewart almost nothing to play off of and yet, when he smiles, that is supposed to substitute for actual personality.

It, alas, does not.

Ultimately, any one of the Twilight films is fine, but when viewed together as the complete Twilight Saga, it becomes tiresome and more of a mess than it ought to. Fans and moviegoers deserve quite a bit more.

For other film sagas, please check out my reviews of:
The Dark Knight Trilogy
The Harry Potter Saga
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy

5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Despite The Hype, Red Riding Hood Is, At Best, Hopelessly Average.

The Good: Direction, Moments of performance
The Bad: No character development, Most of the acting isn't stellar.
The Basics: The supernatural mystery in Red Riding Hood far outweighs the love story, making for an erratic film that scores higher on style than substance.


Back in March, I was very eager to go out to the movies - whatwith coming out of the February Doldrums with the hope that some of the movies being shown might actually be good - and one of the few things that was out that I wanted to see that I did not make it to was Red Riding Hood. I had seen some previews that made it look decent and one of the first dates my now-wife and I had back in the day was seeing Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight (reviewed here!), so I wanted to go. Stupidly, I had read a blurb to my wife, which had said that part of the premise was that Valerie - the protagonist - was in an abusive relationship. That was enough at the end of winter for my wife to not want to see it on the big screen, so we didn't.

Having just finished the movie with my wife, whomever wrote that blurb ought to be out of a job. There was no terrible relationship, nothing particularly scary or gory or even steamy in Red Riding Hood. In fact, most of the movie, I spent waiting for it to pop, waiting for it to become something. Instead, it floated by and while my wife and I periodically guessed who the wolf was, neither of us was particularly emotionally invested in what the answer might be.

Daggerwood is a small village that puts out sacrifices on the full moon to appease the local werewolf that stalks then. Valerie is a young woman who lives in Daggerwood with her father, sister and mother, while her grandmother lives well outside the village in her own home. The young Valerie grew up with Peter and actually showed more of a killer instinct than the boy did, especially when it came to hunting. Now, though, Valerie has been promised to Henry in marriage and she and Peter are working to get out of the village when the first werewolf casualty in thirteen years is discovered . . . Valerie's sister.

In addition to striking fear into everyone and inspiring a hunting party to go off and kill a wolf in the mountain cave, this brings Solomon to the village. Solomon is a werewolf hunter and he is correct in declaring that they villagers have gotten their first attempt wrong. After the werewolf attacks again, Solomon begins a hunt for the actual werewolf that puts Valerie into real peril.

Unfortunately, Red Riding Hood looks better - though very much like Twilight than it actually is in any way good. Even the style points I would be prone to give it are undone by the fact that the plot is so fractured that I became more bored with the movie. Indeed, I was much more interested in how I recognized the actor playing Auguste - he's Lukas Haas from the beginning of Inception (reviewed here)! - than the mystery of who the werewolf is. The problem with Red Riding Hood is that the film is so erratic that it is not consistently a mystery enough to actually become engaging.

So, what starts as a love story quickly becomes a hunt then a paranoid mystery before degenerating into a pretty pointless action-adventure story. The problem with Hardwicke's film is not that it changes from one thing to another, but rather that it shifts abruptly, as if she were handed acts from three or four different scripts and she just went with it. Henry's character has a moment right near the beginning where he abruptly pushes Valerie away and it comes after he shows interest, so there is a feeling of missing an important transition.

On the character front, the movie is similarly erratic. Peter begins the film with Valerie as children where they playfully entrap a bunny. It is Valerie, then, who wants to kill the rabbit, and Peter who is squeamish and has a deep humanity that makes him not want to kill. Without any explanation for what might have happened in the intervening decade, Peter suddenly seems much colder. Actually, his character's fault comes into pretty clear relief when he goes from wanting to run away with Valerie to inexplicably snubbing her. There seems to be no point in this, save to have Valerie and her female friend do a fairly steamy dance together.

This brings us to the acting. Hardwicke has a fairly decent cast with Amanda Seyfried, Billy Burke and Virginia Madsen. But Gary Oldman outshines them all, especially the two leading boys - Shiloh Fernandez and Max Irons - who are especially white bread. Oldman plays Solomon as a pragmatic hunter and he becomes the most likable and consistent character in the film.

Seyfried, who may usually be counted upon to deliver an interesting performance at the very least is surprisingly dry as Valerie. Despite claiming to have passion for Peter, she does not illustrate it very well and she does not infuse the role with any real sexual chemistry or charm.

Ultimately, that is why Red Riding Hood fails. It is not a bad film, it is adequate. But it never becomes anything more than simply a very average film. That seems insulting in this day in age when the extraordinary is possible on film. Of course, that starts with a good script and Hardwicke does not seem to have been given a compelling one from David Johnson, so it is somewhat understandable if the rest of the pieces did not fall into place.

For other fairy tale rewrites, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Hoodwinked!
Ella Enchanted
Ever After

5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Romance For Teen Vampire Lovers: Twilight Will Satisfy Young Fans, But Not Adult Moviegoers.

The Good: Good casting, Interesting fantasy storyline, Moments of character
The Bad: Plot has been done before, Dumbed down to appeal to young adults
The Basics: Fun, if a bit simplified for the young adult audience, Twilight tells a Romeo & Juliet type story (save the conflicts are largely external) with a young woman and a vampire.


When I first watched Twilight, I was in no way educated in the book series that began with Twilight.   Even now, I have not read any of the books (save the latest novella) so this review is strictly of the film Twilight. In fact, I had no idea that Twilight or its sequels existed until I was on my summer cross-country trip in 2008 and found myself at the Mall Of America for a Breaking Dawn release party at the Barnes and Noble there. The place was packed with teenage girls there for the release of the latest novel in the Twilight series and I found myself somewhat envious: I hope someday my literature might earn me legions of fans staying up until midnight to buy my books just for the thrill of being one of the first to own them. Actually, it is refreshing to see people that eager about reading.

So when I went to a screening of Twilight, I had no preconceptions. I had seen the trailers and that was about it. When I was a young adult, I probably would have been into the book and movie Twilight, though; it is fantasy and I was a big fan of fantasy and science fiction. Now, it takes a pretty special work in that genre to get me to appreciate it. Fortunately, Twilight - the movie - does that, for the most part. In fact, if anything, my real problem with it was that it tried too hard to appeal to its target demographic as opposed to serving the story it was trying to tell.

Bella Swan is a teenage girl who has moved to Forks, Washington with her father. There she finds herself less of an outcast than she was at her old school, but some of the students seem to still be standoffish with her. One of them in particular, Edward Cullen, seems to be largely indifferent to her until a freak accident nearly kills her. Bella suspects that, despite Edward's excuse of stopping an SUV with his body being an ability that comes from an adrenalin rush, there is something different about Edward and, of course, there is.

Edward, as it so happens, is a vampire. Fortunately for Bella, he is a friendly vampire who only drinks the blood of animals and is not out to hurt Bella. In fact, he and Bella soon fall for one another when he shows her both his abilities and his perspective on the world. Unfortunately for both of them, as Bella is accepted by members of Edward's family and the prom approaches, a rather fiendish vampire - James - comes to town ready to kill Bella and Edward both.

Sound familiar? Fans of science fiction and fantasy will find the plot remarkably familiar. It's the plot of the first few seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. At least Joss Whedon and his team made an effort to differentiate between the vampires who were good those who weren't. In that mythos, vampirism costs the victim their soul and as a result, they simply cannot help but being soulless and evil (even if some Whedonverse vampires are more mundanely annoying or hapless in an evil way as opposed to actually malicious). Angel, the vampire Buffy falls for, is endowed with a soul and thus loathes his instincts which pull him toward murder, bloodlust and mayhem.

In Twilight there is nothing so concrete. Edward is just a decent guy who happens to be a vampire. His family are just nice people who happen to suck blood and have renounced doing it from humans. Instead, they drink the blood of animals and that is just fine with them. So, what's the difference? Twilight replaces the comedy that Joss Whedon used to buffer his fantasy notions with a strong sense of romance. This is a love story and while Bella has a pretty healthy skepticism at first, she falls with a very adolescent sense of emotion for Edward.

This is where the movie both works and fails itself. It works because Twilight portrays a very young love and it does it well (to a point). In that, Bella and Edward make for a charming young couple with Bella swooning in many of the right ways to lend a sense of realism to her character as a mid to late-teen girl. She has a very girlish sensibility about what love is and that works well because, frankly, young love can be fun and when done right it it enchanting to watch in films and television.

Where Twilight falls down is in its emphasis in the violence over the sensuality. Teen lovers make mistakes (often stupid ones) and Twilight shies away from that earning its PG-13 more for the violence than any expression of chemistry between Bella and Edward. In other words, when it comes to the moments that ought to be passionate - even in a young love kind of way - director Catherine Hardwicke pulls the punches. The result is a feeling that Twilight leaves some of its potential unfulfilled.

As well, the whole appearance of James and his little posse felt like a distraction. Actually, it felt a lot like Spike appearing in Sunnydale . . . But to stay within Twilight, the love story about a guy who is almost a century old romancing a teenager did not necessarily need a violent subplot to maintain the audience's interest. Sure, there's the whole idea that there has to be conflict, but a far more interesting one would have been Edward's internal conflict. Frankly, it would have been much more interesting to see Edward as a guy who was mature and educated enough to be striking out with older women as opposed to a guy who is essentially immortal and refuses to develop past being a teenager after a hundred years. Sure, Edward and his kin matriculate a lot, but what do they truly learn?

In other words, other than the Hollywood beautiful nature of Bella, there isn't much in the film to explain what the real attraction of Bella is to Edward. She is young (not just physically, but emotionally and intellectually) and outside being a damsel in distress who he is able to dazzle with things like running around with her on his back, there is not much that explains her appeal to him. After all, given infinite lifetimes to live as undead, one would suspect the appeal of rescuing girls who also resemble a former-favorite snack might wear thin.

In this way, Twilight disappoints adult viewers. There is very much a young adult sensibility to all of the relationships, not just Bella's. In other words, all of the relationships and characters have a simplicity to them that does not read as right to adults. It is one thing to make a movie about young adults, it is another to make one for young adults and this is clearly the latter.

That said, Twilight is remarkably well-cast. Cam Gigandet is appropriately villainous as James, even if his character is a bit monolithic and virtually all of the vampire characters look appropriately Hot Topic goth in their coloring and body language. Robert Pattinson plays well off star Kristen Stewart. Pattinson has a facade that he is able to erect that makes him appear believably more mature than a person of his years and he plays the role of Edward with a reserve that makes the character work, perhaps a bit better than common sense would indicate.

Kristen Stewart is well-cast in the role of Bella Swan. I write that she is well-cast because she is a teenage girl playing a teenage girl. This is not a significant leap of acting and, indeed, her performance is remarkably on-par with the only other performance of hers I'd seen at the time, that of her role in The Messengers. She is good enough, but how much of the performance is actual acting and how much is simply Stewart being a teenage girl is up for debate.

That said, Twilight may be derivative, but it is good enough to go see. It is fun and it is fantasy and those who like that will find enough to like about Twilight to make it the success at the box office it was pretty much guaranteed to be regardless of what critics said about it.  Now on DVD and Blu-Ray, Twilight comes loaded with a commentary track, featurettes on making the book into a movie and casting.

For other supernatural movies or love stories, please check out my reviews of:
Dark City
The Spitfire Grill
Inception

7/10

For more movie reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2009, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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