I haven’t read the Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series nor do I have any inclination to, but still I was interested in all the ‘new Harry Potter’ hype so I’ve read several reviews instead. They mostly agreed on how excruciatingly bad the books were yet some shamefully admitted the weird appeal.

Well, I said to myself, let’s watch the movie. Forbidden love, cute teenagers – what’s not to like? The premise for the story is quite simple – the divorcee’s daughter Bella Swan (ouch!) comes to live with her dad, a chief of police in a small town of Forks. Surprisingly she becomes rather popular in new school and several nice guys are always around her but Bella falls for the pale-faced and distant Edward Cullen. The guy seems to be avoiding our heroine yet he is omnipresent wherever she goes. Cold hands, supernatural speed and strength, allergy to the sun – WOW, he is a VAMPIRE.

So, what it was like?

Boring and predictable. Well, predictability can be easily forgiven – in a love story we actually know how it is going to end every time. And it’s a teen romance story so none of the main characters could have died a horrible death anyway. Boredom is a heavier issue. In winter, when it’s cold and gloomy I like me some stupid romantic story if it has sweet moments at which that warm and fuzzy feeling tightens my chest promising that everything is going to be just fine. The movie lacked those moments BIG TIME. Not a drop of soul in this medicine, my winter condition prevailed.

Was the casting wrong?

Edward Cullen

Bella Swan

I think, not. Having not read the book, I cannot judge the likeness to the actual book characters, but Robert Pattinson as Edward is somewhat otherworldly and sinisterly beautiful at times, the outline of chiseled jaw, the evil curve of luscious lips; he has a face of a high school bully that would make you a friend only to mock you later with more cruelty or a Roman emperor that would sleep with his sister (Ed Westwick of Gossip Girl, I’m looking at you too!). They went too far with makeup though. Kristen Stewart’s Bella is pretty yet she conveys a perfect sense of awkwardness, of being alone in the crowd.

Why are the characters even attracted to each other?

Well, Bella, it seems, makes a point of being unhappy. Her mother is married for the second time, and from what we know, successfully. What does Bella do? Leaves for the Forks despite loathing the gloom and the cold and the constant rain. There are at least two guys in the town that show affection towards her. And Bella is interested in the one that cannot even sit with her during classes.

The reason why Edward, a hundred years old vampire, wants this otherwise quite ordinary girl, except for her sweet, sweet blood, is his talent to hear thoughts of others, or, to be precise, the failure of his talent with Bella. Edward’s ability to read faces seems to be long dead as he only relies on his mind-reading. So here she is, a black box of a girl. ‘I’ve been waiting for you for all my life’, he says. No matter how shallow Bella might happen to be, she is still a little wonder to Edward.

So, what was all the hysterics about?

Edward is stalker-ish and creepy if you’re mature and confident. But from the point of view of 13-to-17 girls (who appear to be the target audience) he might just be your perfect (if a little cold) Prince Charming: handsome, protective, always there, all he wants is to be with you, walk in the forest and hold hands. No matter that Edward is over hundred, he behaves how a teen girl, romantic and a tad infantile, would make her dream boyfriend act.

Despite the vampire theme being so over- and ill used, it still holds some charm for me. I watched True Blood this season, and I even liked it. In both Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire and Laurell Hamilton’s Anita Blake series there was an interesting subplot of vampires’ coming out and its consequences in modern society. It’s another story, my point here is that different authors create different vampire mythologies, while they all give their monsters speed and strength, and superficial abilities, yet they all agree on one thing: vampirism has certain disadvantages, like fear of the holy objects, being dead to the world during the day and hiding from the sun, but Stephenie’s vamps are not afraid of anything except for being discovered. There are no cons in being an undead, no downside, no vulnerabilities: people literally can do nothing against such creatures. That, and not the crazy stupid sparkling in the sun (behold: a bejeweled vampire! how glamorous!), was one of the things that made me itch.

There simply is no point in Bella’s being afraid: since the moment she met Edward, she exists solely and purely at his mercy, no matter what she thinks or does. She lives only because Edward and his family chose to be ‘vegetarians’ so they drink only animal blood (hello, PETA!).

Maybe, it was all a dream?

At some point (I believe, the sparkly one) the vampire plot husk fell aside, and the whole story turned upside down for me. Hey, I thought to myself, it’s a story of an insecure and unhappy girl, who is more plain in her head than on the outside so she dreams herself a vampire love.

See for yourself: Bella is so miserable with her newly happily married mom that she moves in with her dad who she doesn’t know what to talk about with; her new town is bleak and grey, which she hates but still it suits her more. The town is so wretched that Bella’s arrival is the next big thing: she becomes popular just because of being new.

The out-of-reach local stud Edward makes a scene of not wanting to sit with Bella so she makes up a whole story for his reasoning: he is a vampire, he craves her blood but he is not a monster by choice so he is avoiding her. She has two outstanding features (that usual people cannot be aware of): her blood scent is so sweet it makes vamps go nuts and her thoughts are hidden from Edward’s mind-reading.

With that even sparkling seems more normal – it’s only a daydream after all.

What’s next?

I’ve heard the sequel is in the works. I don’t know what happens in other books (three more, I believe), though I am sure there will be lots of other supernatural creatures which would want Bella inexplicably and at some point she would either turn into vampire or gain other superficial powers to keep up with Edward (they usually do).

P.S. I had to get some healthy dose of Richard B. Riddick, escaped convict, murderer as a cure for my winter depression.

Why is every Russian girl appearing in the movie called Natasha? (c) net wisdom

First of all, I didn’t hate it. The movie was strange though, it couldn’t hold my attention with neither plot nor action. But it felt like a parade of familiar faces (mostly from TV shows):

• annoying speed girl with egregiously bad hair from Heroes as a random junkie;
• Sucre from Prison Break (Amaury Nolasco) as a tattooed monster on steroids;
• Olga Kurylenko (latest Bond, also adaptation of Hitman, where she played a junkie skank) as Russian girl Natasha, guess what, a junkie skank. Now, that’s consistency. And she manages to be BAD even at that. Moreover, she is not that beautiful in dynamics. Her 1.5 facial expressions kill all the fun there is.
• Greasy police captain from Life (Donal Logue) as beard-y mullet-y homeless looking ex-partner of Max.
• Chris O’Donnell. Am I walking near the graveyard or what?
• Crazy Mama Grey (Kate Burton) from Grey’s Anatomy as a big boss from the Company.
• Nelly Furtado as a grieving widow. WTF, people?

Movie Pros:

• Cool narrative in the beginning. Too bad they dropped that later.
• Good visuals from time to time. I liked the eternal snow floating in the air, somewhat feather-ly look.
• Shadow wings as hallucinations (not the grotesque CG’s attached to them; would look much more stylish without them).
• Tattoo salon owner – awesome guy, fantastic voice.

Less pros, more fun:

• When Mona Sax (very Russian name, huh) asked some local thug who the alleged bad guy was, and he said to look for Lupino (woof, woof), the ultimate wack job, they actually showed Lupino smiling his ‘evil’ smile, brandishing a huge knife and sweating. How thoughtful of them.
• Max triggered the fire alarm in the Aesir building, so it started raining inside as well as outside. Very noir-ish.
• The ‘УЕТЫРЕ ПАЛЬТА. СОБОЛЬ’ writing on the wall (literally: ‘EOUR COATZ. SABLE’). Love how they compile some meaningless Cyrillic letters to represent the Russian interior.
• The bad guy sniper hit the drug stock three times never touching Max who was in the middle of some advanced Yoga Asana bending down veeeery slooooowly.
• I kept hearing ‘baby’ when Beau Bridges was addressed (B.B., get it?). Cracked me up each time.

I won’t get into impossible stuff like surviving the freezing water in heavy clothes, that shit doesn’t bother me, it’s a movie. I won’t even concentrate on the fact that they called those gargoyles ‘valkyr’. But Mila Kunis is no A. Jolie who can look badass effortlessly just standing there doing nothing. I loved Mila in American Psycho II: All American Girl, it was bad as well as amusing, a guilty pleasure. But in MP she could muster a badass impression for few seconds, no more, looking helpless all the time.

A consolation prize for those who watched it till the end:

• Natasha gets killed very early;
• Chris O’Donnell’s character gets killed in the middle.

Not a gamer myself, I understand (thanx, wiki) that the original game had a decent storyline, intriguing dark atmosphere and a lunatic protagonist with a wicked half smile and two guns. I have a soft spot for Marky Mark but his yelling didn’t count as lunatic.

I don’t get it and I guess I never will: why they need to take some good stuff and gloss it over with shit do some Hollywood magic to turn it into blockbuster?!

P.S. It sucks to be the action hero these days: your father’s best friend hates you and is going to murder you, your wife, children and even a pet. Bad karma. Lots of bad karma.