After years of enthusiastic disdain for undead teen-bait Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and the incredibly passive and useless girlfriend, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), I watched all the Twilight movies in the course of a week. Not ironically – Twilight doesn’t qualify for a “so bad it’s good” sense since the leads are too awkward and earnest. I watched more with an an “eye candy and background noise” attitude.
The primary appeal of The Twilight Saga, I find, is in the cinematographical opulence: tall trees in the Pacific Northwest! Lingering shots of the Cullen’s house, a.k.a the Modernist Barbie Dream House! Heavy-handed, CGI-assisted symbolism! Clearly normal film review characteristics don’t apply to vampires and their brethren.
So for this edition of Take Five we’ll be ranking the five Twilight films, based on the following criteria:
– How hot everyone is
– How nice the cinematography is
– How offensive it happens to be
– The soundtrack
– How the film treats my favourite characters
– How abnormally stupid Edward and Bella are acting. Not just regular stupid.
We will not be considering the following criteria:
– Run-of-the mill teenage angst
– Pecularities of the Meyer universe
These are my personal rankings of the Twilight films, from worst to best. Spoilers abound.
5. Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)
Bella and Edward get married.
Welp how’s that for wish fulfillment? Thousands of girls now aspire to one day hold dream weddings in the woods with rustic seating and tastefully strewn petals beneath a canopy of spring blossoms. Carslile could only afford this because he played the stock market for centuries.
Not much else happens in this movie – Bella and Edward finally consummate their relationship, Bella gets knocked up, Bella gives birth, and so on and so forth. This is equivalent to a filler episode in television – the bit where the producers run out of money and the protagonists spend their time doing normal things that are easy to film without CGI. For example, “Fly” in Breaking Bad, in which Walter White spends 50 minutes trying to kill a fly, is a filler episode. To an extent, so is “Shindig” in Firefly.
There is no shame in being a filler episode, which is good because Edward is carrying a lot of shame around his shoulders in Breaking Dawn Part 1. He feels guilty for bruising Bella during sex, even though she enjoyed it, guilty for getting her pregnant, and then acts like an unsupportive llama and tries to push her to abort the baby. Ugh.
Anyways they brought Carter Burtwell back to score Breaking Dawn Part 1 after passing the reins to Alexander Desplat (New Moon) and Howard Shore (Eclipse). He refines the themes from the original Twilight, but also brings a sense of closure and optimism to the score in addition to the lilting ethereality of “Bella’s Lullaby”. His score and the scenery are amongst the best in the trilogy, and they still can’t overcome the distastefulness of Edward’s actions.
4. New Moon (2009)
Edward breaks up with Bella. Bella takes up extreme sports and gets close to Llamaface/Jacob Black.
Traditionally speaking, I am on Team Jacob, all the way. He’s a nice dude. Way fewer issues than the undead dude that Robert Pattinson plays as a self-hating manic depressive. Unfortunately, Jacob can’t pull the weight of Bella Swan’s wet blanketiness through two hours of New Moon. Bella finds that when she does dangerous things, she literally hallucinates Edward whispering things like “don’t do it” when in fact he’s thousands of miles away. This leads to things like getting on motorbikes with sketchy catcalling bikers, recklessly driving a motorcycle, and cliffdiving with all her clothes on. I’m sure if New Moon wasn’t PG-13 she’d probably be slicing her wrists open to induce hallucinatory visions of Edward.
Alexander Desplat’s score is also generically pretty and empty-headed – lacking the dissonance that made Carter Burtwell’s Twilight score interesting and suspenseful, although grating. Alternately, it’s far too subtle and delicate for the subject matter at hand.
Anyways the best part of this movie is the part where Alice drives a yellow Porsche 911 in Italy, because it’s soothing to watch expensive sports cars tear down winding rural roads, especially after having to watch Bella do literally nothing for months.
3. Twilight (2008)
Girl meets vampire. Vampire is played by an actor who interprets him as a self-hating manic depressive with a virginity complex.
The first Twilight film is incredibly awkward to watch. It thinks it’s being profound but it’s too predictable and cheesy to be that. It’s like the cinematic equivalent of a teenage gosling at the “holy macaroni that’s ugly” stage, with down feathers and flight feathers mixed together so that it looks like a mouldy, miniature version of a grown-up goose. Also, Kristen Stewart looks like she’s constipated throughout – if not literally, then emotionally.
Carter Burtwell’s score is also pretty grating, but the main Bella theme (“Bella’s Lullaby”) is a beautiful, meandering, otherworldly theme. If only the rest of his soundtrack – and the entire movie – could express the same alien, spine-tingling emotions as the score, instead of being as unbelonging, unsubtle, and unfeeling as Edward Cullen’s rock-hard gelled hair.
Despite the awkwardness, Twilight ranks as high as it does because the actors are still relatively fresh-faced, and it’s easier to forgive Bella Swan when she looks 17 going on 18 rather than 25 going on eternity.
2. Eclipse (2010)
Bella, Edward, and Jacob get into a love triangle. Meanwhile, the vampiress Victoria builds an army to take revenge on Bella for the death of her mate.
I like Jacob, man. This movie makes him out to be a rapey jerk. It’s just not cool. Jacob doesn’t handle jealousy really well either. He was perfectly sane in Twilight and New Moon – being a supportive friend. Now he turns out to be a prototypical “nice guy”. Way to ruin my enjoyment of the character. Still, there’s no such bad thing as publicity, and he has some interesting, if strange scenes with Edward.
The redeeming point of Jacob’s fall from grace is Howard “Hobbitses” Shore’s theme for poor, shirtless Llamaface. The third Twilight composer just goes straight for big, bold melodrama and heartstring-tugging, forgoing the meandering lullabies and pretty, delicate piano. This is not a bad thing, since he makes good of his collaboration with Metric when devising his themes, rather than veer off into his own corner of classical music like Alexander Desplat, who simply couldn’t handle the concept of incorporating pop music somewhat homogenously into his score.
Anyways I think there was (gasp) some foreshadowing in this movie, and a sense of continuity. Twilight really makes one appreciate plot elements taken for granted in other films.
1. Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)
Bella and Edward’s newborn child is mistaken for a monster by a visiting vampire. The Volturi arrive to investigate, and the Cullens work to gather witnesses.
I welcomed Carter Burtwell’s return to score the final film in the quintology. Like Hans Zimmer, his orchestral elements play nicely with the synthesizers and electric guitars, whereas Howard Shore, much as I like him, couldn’t implement them as well into the Eclipse soundtrack and Alexander Desplat hardly tried. This time, Burtwell also incorporates some motifs introduced by his predecessors to a great degree of success.
FINALLY Bella gets some agency over her own body / her life decisions / her kid. This has some unfortunate implications but it makes her character more tolerable. Sassy Momma Bear Mary Sue Bella Swan is much more palatable than Wimpy Human Bella. You go, girl.
Other advantages of Bella’s level-up include less whining, more shots in nice forests in the Pacific Northwest, and being hypothetically able to perform in wirework-assisted action scenes. Disadvantages include unflatteringly pale foundation and off-handed rejection of her father, who is my favourite character in the entire “saga.” But it’s a small price to pay for not having any more Twilight movies.
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