I decided to have a "me date" today. Go ahead, laugh, but it was very tranquil and therapeutic, so there! I went to the movie alone and had buttered popcorn for breakfast/lunch, and got a huge soda. For a while, I was the only person in the entire stadium, so I chose the perfect seat, front and center. Eventually I was joined by an adult mother/daughter duo who sat way behind me, and I think another single woman about my age slipped in during the previews (new Harry Potter movie preview, btw! Looks excellent!!). Anyway, I very much felt like I had the place to myself, so that was cool.
The movie itself... hmmmm. It was... okay. I think it's kind of like that old saying about chocolate (and sex), that even when it's bad, it's still kind of good. I enjoyed watching it and found myself grinning quite a bit at parts that were just like the book. However, the script wasn't the greatest, and I felt like they randomly chose to rearrange certain sequences that didn't need rearranging. I also didn't like most of the added scenes/material that weren't in the book, and the small details like the diner. When did Charlie & Bella ever eat in a diner every night? Ok, so frankly, at times... as much as I was into it... I got a little bored.
The casting irked me. I did not like Kristen Stewart as Bella at all. It's funny, because I thought I would like her understated performance, based on the previews I'd seen. But frankly, and this sounds awful, but she just isn't pretty enough to be the Bella I'd imagined. She's pretty, but there was something about her face that didn't do it for me.
Ok, and Edward. You know I've got a total couger crush on 22-year old Robert Pattinson, and again, I thought I was going to swoon over his performance in the movie... but most of the time, I found him to be kind of creepy as Edward. Maybe it was the extreme close-ups on a humungous movie screen, his plastic-looking and pasty face, with wierd teeth & red lips, or maybe it was his really wierd accent, which I found to be very distracting. I know in real life, he has a gorgeous British accent (to be honest, I kind of hear Edward's voice as slightly British, too), but in this movie he kept reminding me of Anakin Sykwalker (Hayden Christianson) in Star Wars, episodes II and III. Not...uh...not good.
So, don't get me wrong, Edward still looked amazing for most of the movie, but I guess there is just no way to depict someone who is supposed to be the most charming, gorgeous, thrilling, stunning, mesmerizing immortal ever. A for effort, though. Go Pattz. :)
None of the siblings were as good looking as they should have been, IMO. Jasper was actually kind of fug.
Anyway, the script hit the high points, and I loved the action sequences. James, Laurent, and Victoria are very cool bad guys. Oddly enough, the part of the book that I thought was kind of dumb turned out to be my favorite part of the whole film. The baseball scene. I'm sure it's partially because the song that plays during that scene is my favorite song from Muse, a band which I just got into. It's a super sexy song ("Supermassive Black Hole"), and suited the slo-mo uber baseball game nicely.
So, there you have it. Like the buttered popcorn that I had so covetted and skipped two meals to consume, it was not as good as I'd built it up to be in my head. My popcorn was slightly burnt, and this movie was like two hours of disjointed snapshots of pretty (and slightly creepy) people doing lots of talking and not enough macking out. Hrmph.
But I still can't wait to see it again. :)