Twilight on film has some incessant flaws

Based of the novel Twilight, the screenplay adaptation on the book left me indifferent.

The story begins when Bella Swan, a high school junior, moves in with her dad after her mother remarries. Her mother lives in Phoenix, her father in Forks, Washington, one of the wettest places on the continental Untied States.

On her first day at school, Bella meets many new people; only one person sticks out in her mind though: Edward Cullen.

Edward is a foster child in the community of Forks, with his two brothers and two sisters. They are pale, quiet, and deathly beautiful.

Bella and Edward have an instant connection, but not one of love; it is a connection of curiosity.

The spark between the two main characters truly begins when Edward saves Bella in the school parking lot when a van careens out of control. After this, the two begin to hang out and even meet each other’s families.

Bella is truly an unremarkable character, she is not insanely gorgeous, clumsy, and has a dark and slightly boring attitude.

Edward on the other hand hides his dark secret quite well. Cullen is a vampire, but in this novel/movie he has been reduced from a true, terrifying monster from other action/sci-fi movies to a kind of almost subhuman toy that is possibly dangerous, but not scary.

Kristen Steward’s acting was just about horrible. She showed almost no inflection in her voice, but she did quite well when she was writhing in pain at the end of the movie.

The worst acting in the movie went to Jackson Rathbone who plays Edward’s foster brother Jasper. He seemed to be, well, constipated every scene he is in.

I rate this movie a two out of five stars for getting the screenplay relatively close to the novel. However the inexperienced acting and general tone of the movie made me somewhat bored during the movie.

The ladies I have discussed this movie with have all loved it. The dark love story has drawn all of them in and left them gasping for more. The males have not enjoyed the movie as much, possibly because of the chick-flick tone the story carries with it, even if it does involve vampires.

The book however gets four out of five stars for being a decent novel with a mildly entertaining plot. Even though Edward resembles Jane Austen’s dark and brooding Mr. Darcy on more than one occasion, it is an atypical teen romance novel that involves an average girl and a tame vampire instead a geek and the head cheerleader.

If you like the Twilight Series, I recommend You Suck by Christopher Moore, a short and funny novel that involves Thomas Flood, who just became a vampire after his girlfriend bit him during relations the night before.

Also if the paranormal suits your literary tastes, A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore will keep you reading all night instead of paying to see “Twilight.”

One day beta male Charlie Asher sees a man in his room, and everything takes off. He realizes that he has been chosen to do a terribly dirty job, Death.

By Kyle G. Horst

Entertainment Editor