  Teen sad-sack Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) falls hard for hunky Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who happens to be a 107-year-old vampire. Wow, that sucks.
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OMG - I'm so totally not a teenage girl.
So keep that in mind when I stick my neck out and say Twilight the film left me feeling undernourished and underwhelmed. Not that it matters a lick. To the millions of devotees who have lapped up Stephenie Meyer's phenomenally-popular novels about vampire-on-mortal love, this will be, like, one of the most amazing movies EVER. It's critic-proof, parent-proof, possibly even peer-proof. But for casual filmgoers curious about what all the OMG-ing is about, a word of caution: Twilight will give you precious little to chew on.
That's too bad because the director is Catherine Hardwicke, whose Lords of Dogtown and Thirteen were as high-voltage as they were hard-wired into the adolescent mind-set. Here, though, she struggles with an anemic plot - fact is, very little happens until the end - and characters who are better realized in one's imagination than on the screen.
For those of you who've been nailed shut in a coffin for the past year, here's a recap: teenage sad-sack Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is a recent transplant to the cloudy town of Forks, Wa., a backwater that could probably use more animal control officers. Her dad (Billy Burke) is the sheriff and after a few years away from him and the town ? she's been living in Arizona with her mom - she's understandably awkward and lonely. Even in school, she makes friends but doesn't truly connect.
Enter: Edward, soulful Volvo owner. He's a mysterious, aloof object of infatuation and member of the awfully-close Cullen clan, a brood of chalk-white brothers and sisters who seem a little, well, Big Love-y.
Eventually Bella learns what we already know: Edward is a 107 year old vampire, transformed by his "father" Carlisle, who snacked on him in order to save the younger man's life. We can only assume he's lived by various other names throughout the decades. These may include Nosferatu and Fonzie.
In the Meyer-verse, the vamps don't have fangs. They also don't wither in the sun, but sparkle like diamonds. And they play a lot of baseball. Suddenly The Count from Sesame Street seems a lot scarier, doesn't he?
Like the rest of his family, Edward is a "vegetarian" - meaning they only consume animals, never humans. But that doesn't mean he doesn't crave it, and this informs much of his love-hate-smell-run relationship with Bella. Yes, they could have sex, but once he starts nibbling, will he be able to stop? So instead he gives her piggy-back rides up treetops, has her over for dinner (but not as dinner) and skulks into her room to watch her sleep at night. Creepy? Hey, no creepier than a 17-year-old dating a 107-year-old, is it?
More trouble looms though with the arrival of a trio of vicious blood-suckers looking to sample the local cuisine. What was I saying about the town needing more animal control officers? The promise of vampire vs. vampire action - emphasized in the advertising and clearly intended to lure in the guys - is short-lived, though. Worse are the special effects. Is this a movie or a Smallville blooper reel?
As for the two leads, they do well illuminating two highly-internalized roles. Stewart swoons with convincing gravitas, even though Bella is strangely underwhelmed by the revelation vampires exist. Pattinson, meanwhile, admirably digs for traction when only two expressions are really required: brooding and broodier. Or maybe he's just a serious dude mulling a future in which squealing hordes of Twilighters follow him to his grave.
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