twilight twitterpated

I know.

I'm 33 years old.  I won't even use my usual cutesie 'twenty-thirten' cop-out...I am approximately twice the age of the average "Twilight"-going fan at the movies this weekend.  {Although we all know that moms make up a huge portion of this fan-base!}

But I can't help it.  I just love this series.

And yes, I did love the movie!

Now I'll be completely honest with you.  This will likely not win any awards...it was a really low budget film and the cast were relatively unknowns.  The special effects were done with limited funds and resources and it shows.

However, out of a 5 star rating, I give it a solid 4 stars.  Not too bad.  And that's probably because I'm such a fan <----- I'm interested to see what non-fans thought, you know, people who hadn't read the books before and come into it without such a deep-seeded love for the characters already.

Anyway, to give my thumbs-up and thumbs-down:

The acting:

Was actually pretty good.  I thought Kristen Stewart was fabulous, and that surprised me.  She does this weird blinking thing that got kind of annoying thing, but as for pulling off Bella, she was spot-on.  I thought Robert was ok-good.  Nothing too crazy; he does this weird thing with his eyes as well where he doesn't ever focus on anything or anyone when he's talking to them and that kind of annoyed me--but maybe that's supposed to reflect his inner turmoil?--but overall, I think he did a pretty good Edward Cullen.  Jasper's face was weird too, too much angst.  And Alice didn't get nearly enough camera time.  Emmett and Rosalie are pretty great.  Carlisle's hair is way too blond to look natural.  And Jacob was perfect.  One of the biggest surprises for me was how much I loved Charlie.  I was totally prepared not to like him but he was good!  I totally felt his sorrow when Bella tried to leave.  "I just got you back..."   Laurent's accent was horrid--what was that?  french?  jamaican?  creole?  Victoria and James ROCKED.  Good stuff, well done everyone.

The plot:

Stayed very very very true to the book.  Not precisely, but let's face it, this is a 400-whatever page book (mine is loaned out, so I can't check) and they couldn't include everything.  But as some movies are 'based on' books, this really is taken directly from the book with all the important parts, some great dialogue and narration straight from Stephenie Meyer/Bella's words.  I LOVED the humans!  They were unexpectedly funny!  I also loved how they were so juvenile and teenager-ey, to further demonstrate how mature the vampires are.  The one thing I did not like about the plot was that the Meadow Scene, the all important this-is-what-started-it-all awesome scene from the book totally got shafted.  It was barely there and what was of it was awkward.  (Edward's awkward leg position, anyone?  weird)    Except for this omission, I give the plot definite thumbs up.

The production:

As I said, very low-budget.  The special effects-running-climbing-'flying' were very cheesy.  I didn't care for that at all, it really looked fake to me.  I loved the scene in the trees, the piano scene, and the prom scene at the end.  *Swoon!*  For whatever reason, there were a lot of really tight face shots which was obtrusive at first; I got used to it a bit by the middle of the movie, but there's a LOT of that and that can get annoying.  And the whole 'magic carpet' effect that everyone made such a big deal about, well...you hardly noticed it.  It really just looked like the shot was taken in slow motion, so that was disappointing, because I think it could have been uber cool.

However, even though I could pick apart a dozen things from the movie, I really did enjoy it.  I was grinning like an idiot through the whole thing, clapping, squealing, sighing, sooooooo happy!  I'm thrilled that it has been officially announced that #2, New Moon has been given the green light!  I believe they've been given a larger budget too, so hopefully sometime in 2010 we'll be continuing on with the story.

I can't wait to watch it again!  Let me know what you thought, everybody!