Twilight

A while ago, I heard that the largest demographic for motion pictures is teenage girls. After seeing the much hyped Twilight, I'm beginning to believe it. I have difficulty imagining that it holds a lot of interest for other audiences. Most simply put, I spent most of the film thinking, "this is pretty stupid."

It wasn't all bad though. The director did an admirable job of portraying the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. It was almost a character in itself. The teenage characters were also portrayed accurately - they were very awkward and phony, constantly seeking the approval of their peers.

On to the stupid. I'm not going to spend a great deal of time on this, I'll just hit a few things. For starters, the vampire main character is over 100 years old, despite having the body of a 17 year old and yet we're expected to believe that he has anything other than a physical interest in a 17 year old girl? I don't think that anyone other than a teen girl would believe that.

Next, adding the twist to the vampire lore that they can't go into the sunshine because their skin gets all shiny and sparkly and blows their cover is stupid enough that it makes me angry. Maintaining their anonymity is the vampires biggest concern? Really?

The last point I'll mention is that there seemed to be several loose ends that were never tied up. One example would be that one of the female vampires whose name I can't recall (the hot blond one) expresses her disdain for the main character whose name I also forgot (played by the cute Kristen Stewart (I just checked and she turns 19 in a couple days so she's legal - whew)). This is brought up a couple times but nothing ever comes of it and no explanation is given as to why. It is simply dropped. And there are a few other plot elements which are also brought up and inexplicably dropped. It's as if there were a lot more in the book that was cut from the film, but the editing and screenplay was sloppy enough that these stray plot elements weren't completely removed.

Ultimately this movie is about what I expected of it - a crappy romance aimed aimed at a different audience. If you're out of high school or male, chances are this isn't the movie for you. If your love of Forks is strong enough though you might enjoy it. Although if your knowledge of Western Washington geography is good enough a few of the minor lines might cause a little irritation. At one point the sheriff, who is tracking the bad vampires, says, "they are headed east, it looks like they are Kitsap County's problem now." It is a loooong way from Forks to Kitsap County. And the Hood Canal is in the way.

In other news, I can't believe they keep making more Fast & Furious movies. Who in the world watches these? And how does Vin Diesel continue to get jobs? I really don't understand.