Today’s adolescent horror romance resembles its characters. The nubile vampires suck blood; “Twilight” also sucks … but we’re not referring to bodily fluid here.
I don’t care that this pop cultural phenomenon has incited the biggest teen girl ruckus since Beatlemania, or at least Miley. I don’t care that the four Stephenie Meyer source novels have turned into the most buzzed-about young adult fiction franchise since Harry Potter. I don’t care that its rookie Brit boy headliner, vapid young wannabe Robert Pattinson, twists the knickers and kick-starts the hormones of the underage with a parent-frightening frenzy. I don’t care that this movie will rake in a mint this weekend or that a sequel is unavoidable.
Fangs, but no fangs. Director Catherine Hardwicke (“Thirteen”) and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg have wrought one of the most corny, badly acted and plodding examples of paranormal teen posing since Britney first donned those pigtails.
The dumbing-down of the next generation continues with this story of a disaffected but pretty loner and the hot undead dude who loves her. Brooding high school junior Bella Swan (“Panic Room’s” Kristen Stewart) moves from sunny Phoenix to the gloomy wet wilds of small-town Washington state only to find the cutest, strangest — and even more brooding — classmate ever!
It takes the supposedly bright ingénue half of a very slow movie to figure out that Edward Cullin (Pattinson) and his incestuous foster family of gorgeous/rich cool kids are, well, type A personalities … and type O and type AB negative, etc. But the Cullins are good “vegetarian-style” vampires. They imbibe only animal blood and resist their primal desire for the human variety. But can Edward resist Bella’s tempting yummy corpuscles or the rest of her tempting yummy-ness?
As in all vampire sagas on screen from Dracula to Lestat to Buffy’s — even back to “Dark Shadows’ ” over-the-top Barnabas Collins (soon to be resurrected by Johnny Depp in a Tim Burton production), bloodlust is a heavy-handed metaphor for actual lust. Teeth penetrate necks in the same way that — well, you know. But a legal guardian should fear “Twilight” for warping your ward’s aesthetic development more than her virtue.
A junior ensemble cast unfit for soap opera delivers unintentionally laughable dialogue with all the theatrical finesse of Miss Piggy in soliloquy. But, in the case of this predestined box office sensation, a film critic warns in, er, vein.
If you go
“Twilight”
1 out of 5 Stars
Stars: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Nikki Reed
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Rated PG-13 for some violence and a scene of sensuality.
Running Time: 120 minutes
