Twilight

Ever gone to a high end restaurant, had a lovely meal and decide to order the $25 cheesecake?

OK, good, so we’re all on the same page about this.

The $25 cheesecake gets to your table, you take a bite and, suddenly, you realize that you’ve been had. Because the $25 cheesecake? Tastes like frozen Sara Lee nastiness.

You keep eating, hoping, praying that somewhere, somehow, you’re going to hit that $25 bite.

No way, though. It’s over. The cheesecake sucked.

You’re thinking, I cannot believe I spent this much on something so unbelievably average, so incredibly uneventful.

And this describes my feelings about the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series.

I know I’m possibly subjecting myself to the rage of thousands of Cullen worshiping teenagers, and I’ll fully be expecting their version of a fatwa anytime now.

Like, totally, you’re, like, going to die. And, like, it’s going to be, like, by stoning. In. The. Gap.

Before I die, stoned and in the Gap, I’d like to say I did read all of the books. Like the metaphorical cheesecake, I took every bite, hoping and praying that it would get better.

Four million pages later, I sat there mired (or is it meyered? heh) in disappointment.

OK, so, fast forward to last weekend, when I finally watched Twilight on DVD. Why DVD and not the theater? After letting that series suck up to twenty hours out of my life (that’s four months in “I don’t have kids” years), there was no way I was hiring a sitter so I could see it.

This movie marked the first time in my life that I found the movie to be far, far better than the book.

Like the book, teenager Bella Swans finds herself awkwardly trying to navigate high school and connect with a generally estranged father with whose home she’s just moved in to at the po’dunk town of Forks. It rains about 355 days of the year in the Forks, there’s very little sunshine, and the nearest mall is about an hour away.

Already a teenage horror story.

Lucky for Bella, high school isn’t going to be a total drag because the guy who sits next to her in Biology is not only mysterious and handsome, but is also a vampire.

Like, oh my God, that is so hot.

The movie is visually beautiful, with lots of (wait for it, this is going to be where I get technical) blueish hues tinting up the screen. Everything is dark, melancholy and sad, as it should be when a brooding vampire is involved with a morose teenager.

The chemistry between Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart plays nicely and accurately reflects that fine balance between the awkwardness and intensity of adolescent romance. And, really, this relationship and its tension is the heart of what drives the movie forward. (Read "chick flick").

Of course, the description of Pattison’s character, Edward Cullen, in the novel suggests that he possesses a beauty that is stunningly surreal. While I would have drooled over Robert Pattison every single day of my teenage existence, he’s a far cry from surreal or even beautiful.

Aside from this minor casting issue, the movie was well acted, well cast and each character more than adequately reflected the pictures of them I had formed in my mind while being subjected to, er, uh, reading the novel.

So, the movie? I would watch it again, but, mostly, because I love vampires.

Especially the kind that brood about women they can never, ever actually have.

And, now, off to the Gap for my stoning.

** The author of this post wishes to acknowledge that her analysis of any male vampire is irrevocably skewed by her deep and eternal love for Angel of the Joss Whedon series. Because I love him. Forever. And Edward Cullen? Is. No. Angel.

*** So, I know in nerd world, I'm supposed to talk about all the "features" on the DVD, but I didn't watch the DVD with the purposes of reviewing it. So, just deal. Next time, my nerdy friends, next time.