Twilight the movie

Aragorn and I went out tonight to see Twilight for opening night. In some ways it was a disappointment, and it others it surpassed my expectation.

There was a very large crowd—the theater was sold out—but this made it very enjoyable as an experience. The many teenage fangirls were pretty vocal about gasps and squeals at certain scenes/characters/lines, but not to the point where they were louder than the movie. And it was almost more fun to giggle at their excitement with the moms in the theater, than to actually watch the scenes they were getting excited about.

The scenes that were awkward or forced in the book, were unfortunately translated perfectly to screen. Edward and Bella played off pretty flat and/or victims of multiple personality disorder, depending on the scene—so it was accurate there. However, the scene near the end when Bella is attacked by James was very moving and suspenseful, despite the fact that I hadn't cared for her before. As a side note, Bella was too pretty and Edward not handsome enough.

The minor characters, however, were very well cast, especially the Cullens and Bella's school friends. Sometimes their lines were cheesy or just plain bad, but they pulled off what material they had very well. The storyline, also, was pulled straight from the book. I was hoping that they'd tighten up the dragging will-he-won't-he romance part of the book and make the movie faster paced when it came to the action, but they didn't. So the first half of the movie was slow and awkward in places, and the latter third was intense and very well done.

This movie is overflowing in cheese and eye-rolling, but I did enjoy myself in a good deal of it. Though it occasionally got too artsy, the filming style was absolutely gorgeous and perfect at some key moments, and the soundtrack was superb. There were a few genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, and a good amount of giggles (more of them at the silly girls in the audience, but by no means all).

I would definitely watch this movie again, but I would also be fast-forwarding through about two thirds of it. What they got right, they got perfect, but the rest was soundly so-so. I liked the way they ended it, too, and wouldn't be surprised or disappointed to hear that a sequel was being made.