The publicity for this movie has been Potter-esque, and it may suprise you that the film only just came out over here, despite the posters apperaring what feels like 6 months ago.
It’s hard to not suggest any Buffy rip-off when the storyline is described as ‘girl falls in love with a vampire’, but actually it does well to keep away from the familiarity of ‘nice vampire/evil vampire’. Edward is no Angel – he admits to wanting to have Bella’s blood the moment he saw her. Instead though, him and his family call themselves ‘vegetarians’, choosing to only eat animals instead. This provides tension whenever they are with Bella, knowing that their instinct would be to attack her. Another difference is what vampires are in this movie. No more ’sunlight burns them’, instead we find out that sunlight makes their skin sparkle, immediately revealing them as ‘unhuman’, and each individual has different abilities. This was a very good way of making it more than a generic vampire film.
The two leads are very good and the chemistry is very believable. However, there were a few things that I hope get sorted out for the second film. Firstly, the script feels clunky. At times it doesn’t seem to make sense and feels like large chunks have been missed out. Secondly, the tense action at the end is very short, mainly due to the first half of the movie being over full of long stares and silences between the two leads. We understand they love each other, we don’t need 5 minutes of close ups to convince us!
However, I was pleasantly suprised by this film and really did enjoy it. I find myself looking forward to the sequel and it may find itself in my DVD collection.
