As an avid Twilight book fan, I honestly had no expectations for this movie ever since they started publicizing it. When I walked into the theatre on the premiere night, I still was expecting nothing out of this movie. That’s exactly what I got, nothing more, and maybe a bit less. People could argue to say that I enjoyed the film at the moment – which I would agree with – but the second that movie was over, I was absolutely ashamed for paying money to see this movie. The main argument that actual Twilight book fans have against this movie is that it didn’t stay true to the books. That irritates me. The movie stayed very true to the books, corniness and all. Just because every line wasn’t in it, doesn’t mean that the movie is untrue and bad.

The movie starts in an interesting way with Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) as the narrator while events are going on, very similar to how the books started. Bella soon goes to school and immediately notices the Cullens, mostly Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Edward, actually a vampire, doesn’t show up to school for a few days and self-conscious Bella thinks that it must have something to do with her. When Edward returns, he is much apologetic. A few days later in the school parking lot, one of Bella’s friends nearly runs over her with his car and Edward jumps in between her and the car to save her, revealing the first of her powers. Bella insists that she’s fine after that, but is still taken to the hospital where she meets Edward’s “father”, Dr. Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli), who is also a vampire. In fact, all of the Cullens are secretly vampires. At the hospital, Bella is skeptical of Edward, who insists that nothing out of the ordinary happened. Bella with the help of her old childhood friend, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) eventually unravels that fact that Edward is a vampire. She is not afraid of him – in fact, she is deeply in love with him and Edward admits that he is in love with her, too. Upon meeting the rest of the Cullens, Bella finds out that they don’t drink people’s blood, only blood from animals.

Eventually, Bella comes into contact with vampires who do drink normal blood and unfortunately for her, one of them is a tracker and can find Bella from anywhere because he got her scent. Edward panics and tells Bella that he’ll keep her safe. Bella, worried about her father, Charlie Swan (Billy Burke), runs away from home with Edward. The Cullens keep Bella safe from the other vampires until Bella receives a phone call from one of the enemy vampires, James (Cam Gigandet), saying that he is holding her mother captive. Clumsy Bella, in attempts to save her mother, goes to the place where James had specified, a ballet studio that she used to take lessons at when she was little. When she arrives there, she realizes that her mother isn’t there at all, and James had played a recording to lure her into a place where he could drink her blood. James attacks Bella, only to be quickly attacked by furious Edward. After a tragic battle between Edward and James, Edward is the victor and Bella is injured. Carlisle takes Bella to the hospital, where she is treated. Edward convincingly tells Bella’s parents that she fell down two flights of stairs. After such a tragedy, Edward still takes Bella to the school prom, where Bella has a broken leg and has to dance with a cast on. At the end of the movie after some romantic dancing in the moonlight, we see Victoria (Rachelle Lefèvre), one of the enemy vampires,  looking at the two of them with dismay, leaving space for a sequel.

I enjoyed watching the movie, probably because I was with a group of people that I hadn’t seen in a long time. The movie in general was absolutely disgusting. The few things that they did leave out of the book left tremendous plot holes. If I hadn’t read Twilight before, I would have been extremely confused, even to the point of walking out of the theater. Now, I’m not going to complain about how X actor wasn’t pretty enough for Y role, like a lot of people already did, I’m going to give my opinion on relevant plot points to the movie and general things that the movie lacked.

The first thing that makes me dislike this movie is the acting. Stewart seemed very nervous during her monologues and it was almost painful to watch her, thinking that she was going to slip up. Bella, in the books, does not portray the air that Stewart showed, uptight and not caring. This, I think, caused Pattinson to slip up, seeing as though most of his lines were directed straight from her actions, thoughts, or dialogue. Pattinson seemed to be in too much concentration on trying to perfect his American accent for this movie, which outweighed his acting a bit. Also, Jacob Black, who is supposed to be an earthy, dirty, car-working tween, is a cute, preppy, Abercrombie-wearing pretty-boy. I had no problem with this as I was watching the film, but it’s really not Jacob and will probably mess up future films. I don’t want to bash Launtner or any of the actors too much, though. I think that they tried hard and did they’re best. I won’t even get started with the characterization, but that probably has nothing to do with the actors.

Overall, the Twilight movie had a terrible effect – aftertaste if you will. I felt the theatre feeling nothing and still cringing from the terrible CGI. It’s not Summit’s fault at all – they just had a low budget. I suppose the movie left me with something to blog about, having a good time with my friends, and a hole in my wallet because I stupidly bought popcorn at the movie theatre, which cost me seven or so dollars. Really, this movie is for a Twilight fan and no one else. Even though this movie is a train wreck, it’s still fun to see a person refereed to as your favorite book characters. I saw the movie as one big project to add a page to Stephenie Meyer’s (the author of the Twilight series) website.