Entertainment Weekly has a round up of reviews from all over. But I was taken with finding the most snarky element of each one. Two of my faves:
The Star-Ledger’s Stephen Whitty: In turning Meyer’s words into images, however, the movie sometimes makes them a bit absurd…. The special effects—with the undead leaping about like something from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Vampire”—are more silly than surreal. The spiky dyed hairdos suggest metrosexual monsters who live not on blood, but styling gel.
I have a little crush on Roger Ebert thanks to his review of Twilight: “She has questions. “How did you appear out of nowhere and stop that truck?” Well might she ask. When he finally explains that he is a vampire, he goes up from 8 to 10 on her Erotometer. Why do girls always prefer the distant, aloof, handsome, dangerous dudes instead of cheerful chaps like me?”
[Thanks to Darlynne and KatieBabs for the linkage.]
Time’s Richard Corliss: “There’s an audible shiver as they first spy the teen vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), his impossibly gorgeous face caked in a mime’s pallor, sitting in biology class next to young Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). When he holds an apple in his hands to present to her — the novel’s cover image — the girls emit an awestruck sigh, as if they’d just seen Zac Efron in the flesh or a puppy on YouTube.”
I wish Corliss hadn’t been so quick to dismiss the cinema version as a pre-dose of “chick flick,” pairing the retro film elements of focusing on the about-to-kiss faces with the youth of the audience as some sort of rebirth of innocent cool – then tossing that rebirth into a pejorative slam against “movie estrogen.” If he hadn’t slid into sexist derision, I’d be hollering with glee about Corliss’ point, made at the end of the film: “It rekindles the warmth of great Hollywood romances, where foreplay was the climax and a kiss was never just a kiss.”
So, did you see it? What did you think?
