Twilight. Stunning.

You know the paperbacks with cover illustrations showing a muscular man with a chiseled jaw and longish hair who holds a curvy woman and stares in her eyes as if wondering whether to fuck her or strangle her, with gold lettering and only minor variations in characters' names and hair and eyes color? Yep, that's what 'Twilight' is - an over hyped corny romance novel, that served as a basis for a just as over hyped and corny movie. Be warned: possessing a Y-chromosome and/or adult common sense is a counter-indication and overdosing on pink may lead to severe nausea and irreparable brain damage. The whole story is nothing more than the wet dream of a virgin girl who is already feeling the urge to go out and mate with the biggest baddest male out there, but wishes for him to be also nice, gentle, tender and caring. Of course, in real life women quickly learn that the bad boys get too much female attention and tend to fuck everything that has a heartbeat, so they are anything but tender and caring, but that doesn't stop them from dreaming and the author from going unimaginable lengths in order to make the Chosen One acceptable. I'm still having both good laughs and hard time trying to wrap my brain around the ridiculous concept of a family of vegetarian (sic) vampires who gladly accept guests for dinner. I mean, for having a dinner together. Hey, what about the Masquerade? Anyway, we get vampires that don't drink blood, don't die in the sun, reflect in mirrors and go to the local high school. Really. 

And voila - we get our shy 'girl-next-door' cutie and her seemingly impossible (therefore Romantic) True Love™ story, chockfull of contradictions. I almost feel bad for thinking it, but doesn't the guy's bad circulation (or lack thereof) mean that his hands are not going to be the only cold part of him? Reproduction between different species can pose certain challenges as well, says the Cynic. And I'm leaving out unimportant details as my suspicions whether baseballs are designed for supersonic flight or what would they do to a baseball bat. 

We get a large helping of dialogue that is cheesy to the point of being instant mind killer. It took me a lot to recover from the 'What a stupid lamb. - What a sick, masochistic lion' exchange, for example, but my ribs still echo with pain. And I think there should be a ban on voice-overs in anything that is not explicitly Noir. Especially when it's high school grade poetry (hello, Mr. Malick!) or pseudo-philosophic remarks (the observant 'Death is easy. Life is harder' statement was the reason for the first ever sub-orbital vomit launch).

I guess the director (Catherine Hardwicke) was painfully aware of the quality of the screenplay she had to work with, so she tried to alleviate the pain with some beautiful scenery. The leads visually are a welcome break from the regular Barbi and Ken pairs, so typical for the romances, but their acting was uninspired and bleak. As was the movie as a whole. If you want an unorthodox take on vampires, go and rent 'The Wisdom of Crocodiles' and don't waste your time on this... thing.

Oh, I almost forgot - there was a hint the local Indian tribe were really werewolves. Do you still have doubts Stephenie Meyer suffers from graphomania and her books are actually symptoms?