Twilight: It’s Raining Hot Vampire Stalkers, Hallelujah!

I went into Twilight, the new teen vampire romance steaming it up at a multiplex near you, with really, really low expectations. I’d read, and not thought much of, the book. And I’d seen, and laughed at, the trailers. I assumed the movie would be a barely watchable cheesefest.

So, predictably, I loved it.

Here is an example of Twilight dialogue:

Hero: And so the lion fell in love with the lamb.

Heroine: What a stupid lamb.

Hero: What a sick, masochistic lion.

That exchange, uttered without a hint of irony, comes straight from the book the movie’s based on, a megabestseller that’s rivaling Harry Potter (cash-wise, if not quality-wise).

And if you can stomach that kind of dialogue, the movie is well worth seeing.

The plot is pretty straightforward. The point-of-view character, Bella, moves to a rain-drenched town in the Pacific Northwest and immediately falls in love with the closest available hot centenarian vampire. Said vampire, Edward, soon falls in love with her too, and they spend the rest of the movie hanging out in the woods talking about how hot he is. Also, there’s vampire baseball.

Even during my days as a Buffy fan, I never bought into the vampire/human romance scenario. Edward is 107 years old. Bella is 16. If a 107-year-old guy who looked like a 107-year-old guy fell in love with a teenage girl everyone would be appalled. But, because this particular 107-year-old looks like Robert Pattinson, it’s considered A-OK.

But that’s also because this is a story out of an old-school romance novel. A helpless, ordinary female wins the heart of the most desirable male in her vicinity, and then is fiercely protected by him against the horrors of the world.

The problem is, Bella, as played by Kristin Stewart, is neither helpless nor ordinary. And Robert Pattinson as Edward is not the most desirable guy. Part of Edward’s mystique, and that of all the vampires in the Twilight universe, is supposed to be an awe-inspiring, unearthly beauty. However, this is a big-budget mainstream movie, so everyone is beautiful. Despite the filmmakers’ best efforts to diminish her with hoodies and bland makeup, no one could argue that Kristin Stewart is less attractive than Robert Pattinson, or any of the other actors playing vampires (even Nikki Reed, who has the unenviable task of playing a character described in the books as “the most beautiful person in the world”). So instead of coming off as a teen Adonis, Edward, with his sticky-up hair and extreme pallor, just comes off as weird. (Although this didn’t stop the producers from carving out a huge chunk of the movie for extreme close-ups of Robert Pattinson’s face: his shiny gold eyes, his blood-red lips, his overly twitchy eyebrows.)

Bonus point: Edward’s courtship rituals include sneaking into Bella’s room every night, without her knowledge, to watch her sleep. Romantic or creepy? You decide. Millions of readers interpreted it as romantic. I, and many others, interpreted it as creepy. Robert Pattinson and director Catherine Hardwicke seem to have interpreted it as a combination of the two, and that’s what made the movie work for me. It didn’t ask us to buy in completely to the Bella-and-Edward-as-Romeo-and-Juliet cliché of the book. Instead, it set Edward up as a lonely, socially awkward manic-depressive who happens to spend his weekends hunting deer with his bare hands. And who, oh yeah, is really, really hot. Therefore, we can recognize Bella for what she is: a confused teenage girl who’s getting into something dark and sinister that she can’t possibly understand. Because she met a guy who’s really, really hot.

But that’s not the most popular view of the books, and I’d imagine that many longtime Twilight fans will disappointed by the movie. It takes nerve to adapt a book with a rabid, massive fan following and present the most important character ? the one millions of girls worldwide consider their One True Love ? as a borderline psychopath. It’s like if the film version of Gone with the Wind had chosen to play up Rhett Butler’s slave-killing, wife-raping qualities, rather than just instructing Clark Gable to smile his most charming smile every time the camera turned his way.

But, hey, I thought this version of Edward rocked. And my opinion is obviously more important than everyone else’s.

Plus, visually, I found the movie stunning. It might not be racking up any screenplay awards, but I hope it gets a few slots in the tech categories at the Oscars. There are lots of lush, soft-focus landscapes and well-used handheld cameras. The special effects, however, are rather bizarre. On a few occasions, Edward hoists Bella onto his back and climbs trees at lightning speed, calling her “spider monkey” and somehow managing to be less sexy than Tarzan.

There are other characters in the movie besides Edward and Bella, but they don’t get much screen time. Edward lives with an extended family/coven, and I’m told that each of its members will come into their own in the later movies, but in this one they mostly hang out in the background. My favorite was Jasper, with his crazy hair, shuffling gate, and inability to inflict any feeling into his lines. And there’s also Carlisle, the leader of the coven and fittingly the weirdest-looking of the bunch (picture Peter Facinelli playing Ethan Hawke in Gattaca crossed with Austin from season 1 of Project Runway, but with more makeup).

It would be going too far to call Twilight a good movie. But as entertainment, it’s incredibly satisfying. See it. Watch the vampires jump and preen. Just don’t make fun of their sparkly, sparkly skin. You don’t want to hurt their feelings.