(warning: long post ahead).
i LOVED it! yes, the special effects were horrid and some of the dialogue was laughable, but nothing could make it less thrilling to see twilight acted out on the big screen. i think the special effects issue could be resolved in the subsequent movies with more money (they made this movie with only $36 million - really low budget for a part-action movie) and there were only a few lines that were cringe-worthy.
robert pattinson as edward was so PERFECT that i didn't even care about his mile-high hair. i loved his intensity and his tortured voice and his eyes and his "crooked" smile and his chemistry with kristen stewart was great. i loved the little kissing scene in bella's bedroom - definitely hot, but not so hot that there's nothing left to build up to.
kristen stewart as bella was terrific as well, but not as terrific as edward. i remembered her being a little more light-hearted in the book and she was definitely very serious in the movie and not so "swoony." her hair was the perfect red-brown color and so lush and thick. her clothes were great, too - sensible but fitted. she interacted really well with the high-schoolers but was definitely not as dramatic as she is in the book.
alice was dead-on and she actually did wear leggings and flats like i thought she would. i loved how she would lift her leg like a ballerina when she pitched during the baseball game (which was awesome).
like my sister said on her blog, rosalie was so not up to par. not just her looks, but her clothes and how she carried herself. she had the anger right because she's constantly glaring at bella but if you hadn't read the books, you wouldn't know that everyone was supposed to be intimidated by her beauty. she's been in 2 of the director's other movies so there's the explanation for that.
i didn't expect the movie to be so funny! the director really understood teenage humor and the boys vying for bella's attention was so funny and so true. her frenemy, jessica, was sooo perfect and was like the comic relief for the whole movie. jacob was great and has this blinding smile and you could tell there was real chemistry between him and bella that would be really useful and accurate for the later movies.
there were some parts that were funny but were definitely not intended to be. when edward was running, his torso was stationary but his legs looked cartoonish - like in that roadrunner cartoon how the bird's body stays still, but the legs are blurred and fast. and the part where edward's sucking the venom out of bella's hand to save her, and carlise tells him to stop, and edward looks up at him with these bulging eyes and and it just looked weird, and as my mom put it, rodent-ish. oh, and when bella walks into the biology class and edward smells her for the first time, he does those bulging eyes again and it looks funny instead of intense.
there were some parts that i was looking forward to that were missing, which was sad but okay. understandably they can't put everything in or else the movie would be 5 hours (which would totally be okay with me). for example, when she wakes up that first morning after she finds out edward's a vampire and he's sitting in the rocking chair and he says her hair looks like a haystack and that he likes it and then she says "you stayed!" and throws herself across the room into his arms. that would have been cute to see. and i was totally looking forward to seeing the cullen vampires looking smokin' hot at the prom in their fancy get-ups and they weren't even there. and they didn't even let esme (who was PERFECT) explain with her one sentence that she had nearly died because she had thrown herself off a cliff because she had lost a baby. really? you couldn't put in that one line for esme? oh, and there was literally no mention of how jasper can influence people with his moods, which was weird because that's a huge part of his character. and i would have really enjoyed more build-up before edward reveals he's a vampire and i felt that went way too fast, but again, they had to cut and trim everywhere and i kept telling myself that the first harry potter movie was pretty rough concerning the editing but that the next movies got better so i have hope.
OH! and the stupidest thing? victoria (who, with laurant and james, was perfect as well) shows up at the prom and watches edward and bella menacingly from upstairs while they dance in the gazeebo - this was definitely not in the book and doesn't fly because, duh, edward would have heard victoria's thoughts and reacted to them, which he didn't. but edward and bella both looked beautiful in the final prom scene and i cannot WAIT for the new moon movie - which is now officially being made due to summit entertainment's announcement on november 22nd. hooray! (for the full article, paste this in your search bar: http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1599994/story.jhtml)
so, overall, there were definitely some serious errors and oversights but that didn't stop me from squealing in my seat (along with the 14-year olds next to me) when edward made his first appearance in the cafeteria or sighing in appreciation when they kissed for the first time in her bedroom. i am definitely taking paul to see twilight again next week.
