Accidental Movie Review - Twilight

Through a Lemony Snicket set of circumstances, Bill Wood and I found ourselves watching Twilight.

We meant to see Quantum of Solace, but when we got there, it was sold out. We stood there looking at times, and the next showing of anything was Twilight. In retrospect, this was one of our mistakes. A minor mistake compared to some of the others, but a mistake nonetheless.

If you are not a teenage girl, this movie is not made for you. The wildly popular Stephenie Meyer books are crafted to push every teen female emotional button. My resident teen female was seeing this movie with her friends at roughly the same time. Of course, they were in a different theater across town, and managed to manipulate the parent chauffeur, Skip, into changing his plans and not watching the movie with them. How horrible would that have been, having a parent next to you while you savor one of the movie's themes, The Boyfriend Your Parents Would Never Approve?

Bill said that this movie was like a soap opera that wouldn't end after 30 minutes. The most interesting aspect of viewing this film, much of which was shot in Portland and the nearby Pacific Northwest, was to try and recognize where the various scenes were filmed.

My resident teen/Stephenie Meyer expert found the movie disappointing. She said that the movie plot oversimplified the book, left out scenes which she thought were critical to the story, and presented story elements out of sequence. Without her help, I never would have known that in one of the diner scenes, the woman at the counter typing on a laptop was Stephenie Meyer.