Twilight: after moving to the sticks Bella discovers that her new boyfriend, and his entire family, are vampires – I hate when that happens!! What surprised me is how much this is just a bog-standard coming-of-age, high-school teen-drama, with a side serving of vampires. Most ‘classic vampire traits’ are there, but the film doesn’t really dwell on them, and quickly explains the ‘workarounds’ – like how they can go out in daylight. K-Stewart is actually pretty good as the dowdy girl-next-door ‘new kid’ at school; R-patz on the other hand seems to just scowl at other characters, ridiculously, and in an infinitely broodily manner – he’s embarrassing to watch at times. The rest of the characters are well-cast, and do what they have to. The picture is very drab, devoid of any life and colour – pretty depressing and glum to watch – at least until R-Patz started SPARKLING!! Added to the plain direction, and it feels very much like a TV movie. Other noteworthy points are the: easiest vampire family infiltration ever, Edward pretty much shows/tells Bella everything; ridiculous meet the family scene; superhero baseball, lots of emo / indie music; and who’d have thought that Volvo’s were COOL COOL COOL?!?! It’s not a fantastic movie, nor is it a particularly original one, but the first Twilight film is a run-of-the-mill high-school movie, with vampire cloak over it; but what bugs me most is that vampires aren’t monsters any more, but merely ridiculous teenage sexual fantasy-projections. It’s a franchise opener that ticks the boxes, and ends up being way more chick-lit-flick than vampire/action/thriller movie.

Emo Vampires 1 – Vampire Goths 0

Score: 6/10

Could have done with way more Anna Kendrick