Dir. Catehrine Hardwicke
Writ. Melissa Rosenberg
Act. Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke

It's Vampire's Creek. Or maybe One Vampire Hill. Or Melrose Vampire.

But it's still pretty good.

After moving from Phoenix back to Washington state to live with her father, Bella Swan, played by Kristen Stewart, is a clumsy, kind hearted but quiet teen who takes an interest in Edward Cullen, played by Robert Patterson, an intelligent, good-looking vampire-really? You don't say! Edward consistently tries to keep him and his family's blood-thirsty nature a secret.

Against his better judgment, Edward falls for Bella, who in turn falls for him and learns more about the vampire's family and history in the northwest; however, another brood which is hunting in the area catches wind of Bella, and one rival vampire sets out to separate the girl from Edward and company and feast on her.

Yummy.

This movie is definitely for the teen, Hot Topix-shopping, my-life-sucks-so-bad-even-though-I-don't-pay-any-bills-and-don't-have-to-work-for-a-living market. It's the first in a series of young reader novels by Stephanie Meyer. The next is Moonlight.

The acting was second rate. No real standouts except maybe for Billy Burke who played Bella's father and provided a handful of laughs.

Story-wise, for what the movie is, it's pretty good. I was interested for the most part where the story was going, having NOT read the books. I always appreciate any movie that can give a new spin on vampire lore, which this does in some respects. It dusts off plenty of vampire conventions as well though.

The one new aspect I didn't care for was how THESE vampires turn into a disco ball when the sun hits them. Seriously. As Bella puts it, their skin looks like diamonds. It's SO obivously not only did a woman write the book, but also the screenplay (Melissa Rosenberg). Not that I'm sexist, but only a female mind could conceive a vampire that "glistens" in the sun instead burning up like a piece of paper on the surface of the sun, screaming horribly. Apparently, that's un-romantic GUY movie mentality. Balls to that!

The worst part of the movie, outside of the giggling teenagers crowding the theater begging for Edward to have an undead, uber-attractive shirtless scene, is the pace of the movie is pretty damn slow. With all the marketing, we already know Eddie is a blood-sucker, so why take SO much time for Bella to realize that. It seemed to take forever for her to finally get a clue.

THEN it took forever for them to actually be a couple.

As sappy and teen marketed as this picture was, it was decently made and makes me actually want to see the next installment…even though I can already tell what's going to happen.

There's far better movies to come out this year (2008), but this one wasn't as painful as it looked.

Benn - Where's the Humanity?