“Why?” was the question that rattled around in my brain. Like Edgar Allen Poe’s beating of the infernal heart, the question “Why?” wouldn’t stop crashing against the rocks of my mind. Instead of going to dinner with some nice lady or enjoying the single life with a cheap, self-interested evening, I was undergoing a masochistic ritual of self-flagellation by enduring 12 hours of vaguely abusive relationships between pale, dead-eyed people and the innocent women whose careers may be forever ruined by association.
That’s right. Back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back, I took in the Twilight film series, that story of a low-chemistry love between Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), an outline of a teenage girl, and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), an immortal vampire with boundary issues.
But that wasn’t enough. Five films in a day is not even half my day. As such, I decided to add a film that began its life as Twilight fanfiction entitled Masters of the Universe by an author writing under the pseudonym of SnowQueens IceDragon. You know it as 50 Shades of Grey, the BDSM (Bondage, Domination, Sadism and Masochism) love story between Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) in a tale that had the nation’s aunts keeping their Kindles vertical for a few months.
Join me on the journey through these six movies as I bring you my thoughts and findings and try to praise the movies so this isn’t just another snarky, above-it-all article on the Internet.
Twilight (2008)
Who’s the director?
The Twilight series was unequivocally the product not only of its original creator, Stephenie Meyer, but also of the studio seeking to profit from the book’s immense popularity. The director had little to do with its shaping, and I can imagine that’s a huge part of why the director cycled out with each film.
First up at bat was Catherine Hardwicke, director of Lords of Dogtown and The Nativity Story. More than anyone else until Bill Condon, she seemed to actually understand some microcosm of what made these stories work and how they could be subverted in interesting ways. She pitched Twilight as an unsteady and somewhat melodramatic work and understood how to frame the layer of menace just under the surface, perhaps without fully making it explicit.
But her visual sense is just… just awful.
The KStew and RPatz Report.
Twilight is the beginning of a trend that I imagine I’m going to get rather vociferous disagreement with, but it establishes the consistent trend of Kristen Stewart at least giving a damn about trying to find something in Bella Swan. And it established Robert Pattinson as seemingly despising the fact that he’s in these movies.
This is honestly Stewart’s best work in the franchise. Not only does she feel authentically like a teenage girl (because at this point, she is a teenage girl), but she seems to find the insecurity and awkwardness that is inherent in her situation. She seems legitimately conflicted, and her body actually manages to convey the messages of the story and of a character while still having hope that Bella is a character.
Pattinson, however, doesn’t seem to care at all that he’s in this movie. He’s openly contemptuous of the work, and the director doesn’t seem to know how to translate anything about his near-nonexistent character into cinematic action. His facial expressions are distractingly bad, resembling constipation more than desire.
Did anything work?
Actually, yeah. At times, this film chooses to focus (in the hour that it spends away from vampires) on Bella’s high school life and group of friends. They feel like real world high school students (including Anna Kendrick in one of her first prominent roles), and I’m a sucker for a good high school story. Had this been an indie about Bella’s new high school life, I might have been into it (a recurring theme during my viewing was trying to discover the better or alternate film within these stories).
And vampire baseball, as out of nowhere as it is in this film, is at least weird enough to be memorable.
Okay, now tell me what sucked.
This is the ugliest film I’ve seen in a long time. Twilight is legitimately and shockingly ugly. It doesn’t just apply a blue filter; it washes out everything and anything to the point of unpleasantness. The camera moves through the space like a bad Evanescence music video. The makeup can be seen on necks. People who are legitimately attractive in real life are turned into horrifying monsters and not in the way they need to be. This film is almost impossible to watch due to the sheer terrifying ugliness that washes over it.
And it really never can overcome the source material. Outside of the bafflingly bad visual style, most of the problems simply rest in the original story. Author Stephanie Meyer never conceived actual characters, sensible and consistent mythology (why does every vampire have a different super power?!) or relationships that didn’t borderline on abusive (why does Edward keep appearing in Bella’s room?!) within the text of her original work. Those problems rest in the book, and this film has no willingness to change that.
It also begins the trend of these films to be so slavish to the original book that they replicate literary pacing. As such, the films are practically inert. Again, part of that is due to the rather amateurish plotting and writing, but much of it is slower-than-frozen-molasses pacing that makes it absolutely impossible to keep track of.
What’s the takeaway?
Good acting does not necessarily come from good writing. You can have a good performance with a badly written character.
Visual style is so, so important. Good-looking films are given a lot more leeway than ugly ones.
New Moon
Who’s the director?
Despite helping to make more money than some small countries earn, Hardwicke clashed with the studio over the direction of the second film, leading to her replacement by Chris Weitz, writer and director of The Golden Compass, About a Boy and American Pie.
While Weitz is a much less aggressively ugly stylist than Hardwicke was with Twilight, he also seems more lost with what these films are about. A steadier hand at the wheel is exchanged for a more workman approach. There are no ideas whatsoever about what this might be, so New Moon is even more head-banging-against-the-wall boring than the first movie, if you can believe it.
Team Edward or Team Jacob?
Team Jacob, clearly. To call Taylor Lautner a thespian is an overstatement somewhere along the lines of calling an ant a giant, but he’s at least charismatic and interested in this role, which is more than could ever be said for Pattinson at any point in this whole series.
Plus, Lautner and Stewart have infinitely more chemistry in these films, which is a huge problem that no director ever tried to deal with. Stewart and Pattinson are attached because the story demands it, but it becomes hard to believe they would ever gravitate naturally together, despite their real world relationship. I earnestly understood Stewart and Lautner having some sort of attraction.
Which is why it’s disappointing that the narrative always seems so unwilling to explore that with any actual honesty. I get that destiny brought Bella to Edward, but there really should have been some response to the clear effect that Lautner’s Jacob had on the film.
The Anna Kendrick Report.
Anna Kendrick is perhaps the most curious member of this film’s cast. While most of the wretched souls in these films were locked into the insane shooting schedule, and we don’t see much of them outside of these films, Kendrick had a decreasing role in the series while her acting star grew over the course of the series. A minor character actress in the first, she was an Oscar-nominated actress after this one and leading her own franchise by the final film.
Keep an eye out for her increasingly glamorous appearance and smaller and smaller role, partially owing to the story and partially to how busy she became over the course of these films.
Did anything work?
There’s a really cool sequence with Bella plunging into the ocean that reminds me of the visuals in the film Across the Universe. This film conveys depression really well. Jacob and Bella are actually fun to watch. Pattinson isn’t in it much.
And natural vampire Michael Sheen shows up as the big evil villain vampire, and it is camp gloriousness.
Okay, now tell me what sucked.
New Moon is ungodly, slowly-paced and boring in a way that made this middle segment the worst part of the franchise. This is where I started to ask myself why the hell I was doing this. It’s poorly written and starts to show how Meyer was in over her head, as the narrative is beyond convoluted and just not at all interesting. There’s a lot of unnatural character work that speaks to a lack of ability to create any natural character growth or arcs. Jacob becomes a total jackass halfway through the film for reasons it cannot explain narratively.
While Twilight is physically unpleasant to watch, at least it felt like it had some ideas. You can almost hear Weitz trying to get this whole filming thing over with during the movie, and the unnaturally slow pacing only makes it worse.
What’s the takeaway?
Directing is so, so important. A steady hand, even one without ideas, makes things a little better. Visual style doesn’t hurt either.
Eclipse
I was going to have a whole breakdown for this thing but, to be honest with you, I love myself, and I have other things to write. Eclipse is basically New Moon without the cool parts. There are more CGI wolves and vampires punching each other and an attempt at a battle against Bryce Dallas Howard’s (Howard is basically B-level Jessica Chastain with a far worse agent) villain Victoria, but the buildup to this over the past three films just doesn’t mean a thing. It’s slow, it’s boring, it’s lame, it’s got another director who makes the film look better but doesn’t care. Who gives a fuck? No one making this did.
Breaking Dawn Part 1 and Part 2
Who’s the director?
Apparently, all Twilight was waiting for to approach legitimate watchability was director Bill Condon. Director of films like Gods and Monsters and Dreamgirls, this is the return of a director who legitimately has some idea of what can be done with these films.
In this case, he realizes that what people like in these movies is very similar to what people like in the old Douglas Sirk melodramas. Big, over-the-top emotions combined with a fantasy representation of what love could be was always kind of an inherent quality to Twilight. Condon just takes that Sirkian mode and welds on lush, colorful visuals and a dramatic Carter Burwell score to basically turn this into a classic melodrama film with vampires and some truly, deeply insane storytelling.
As such, these are the most absolutely watchable of the five not only thanks to that actual idea of how to craft, but also because of some legitimately great constructions and images. Condon finally figures out that if you can’t get what you want out of the source material, turn it into what you want.
This shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-ANAS.
A short list of things that happen in this film:
- Bed-breaking sex. Repeatedly.
- A half-human, half-vampire baby that straight up almost kills her mother.
- Said baby is delivered by C-section.
- Said baby instantly has her mother’s former lover fall in love with her. It’s okay, it’s not like that yet.
- A political meeting of werewolves communicated through ESP.
- Worldwide vampires. Including jungle vampires and Irish vampires in pageboy hats and Lee Pace.
- The back half of Part 2 is basically X-Men.
- THE FINAL SCENE IS A 20-MINUTE ORGY OF VIOLENCE
- A WEREWOLF GETS PUSHED INTO MAGMA
- DECAPITATIONS EVERYWHERE!
- Sheen gives a performance that would not be out of place in an episode of Batman starring Adam West.
In Twilight, Stewart gave a damn and Pattinson did not. And, for most of the series, that held. That is, until this twofer seemed to switch them. Whether the intervening years or other work changed them, or perhaps due to the nature of this film, Stewart seems to have totally checked out by this one. This is perhaps the performance that most gives in to the general public’s perception of Stewart as a bored and lifeless actor.
On the other hand, Pattinson is going full bore into the melodrama of this one, giving a performance pitched up to the rafters. It’s not good, not on the level of his work with David Cronenberg that’s earned him legitimate critical acclaim. But it’s fun to watch him actually try and to see some life beneath his massive eyebrows.
Oh my god, something actually worked?
I’m as shocked as you are. But there are moments in this set that I would actually call good and commendable.
First, Condon and cinematographer Guillermo Navarro have crafted a legitimately gorgeous film. It’s a lush and colorful film that creates images that actually strike you and say something. An early dream sequence that personifies Bella’s fears as a blood-drenched Edward standing atop a pile of her dead friends and family is chilling. The scene where Bella gives birth chooses to hide the gore in favor of a point of view sequence that becomes legitimately horrifying.
And second, Condon actually decided to swing for the fences in the best possible way. The final battle sequence is a baffling, confusing and insanely awesome sequence. Even now, it’s still one of the best super-powered battle sequences I’ve seen on film, on par with the best of the superhero genre. It’s like an X-Men cartoon come to life, so unexpected and striking that one almost wishes there was more to see.
Oh, still sucks, right?
Being the best of the Twilight franchise is still losing overall. No matter what, the source material is still poorly written, slow as unholy hell and just an outline of something designed for fantasizing. And performer fatigue seems to really be hitting this film hard. While newer actors are giving some effort (Pace, Rami Malek and Sheen are scene-chewing fun) that Condon does really admirable work with, the veterans just seem tired. It’s a franchise that exhausted every possible idea it might have ever had.
What’s the takeaway?
The best thing you can do with franchise filmmaking, no matter the film, is to get somebody who has a damn idea to work on it. Workmen can be good, but if you already have your story together, why not find somebody who can put a good spin on the image, or make it really nice to look at?
And sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can’t overcome the source material.
50 Shades of Grey
What’s the story with this one?
Any popular work has fanfiction — that’s a given. While it serves its function, and some is even legitimately good or important to the ideas of representation in media, most of it is embarrassing. But for years, it just stuck to the corners of fandom and the Internet. 50 Shades of Grey changed this trend.
Originally published as Masters of the Universe under E.L. James’ username of SnowQueens IceDragon, the series took off and got enough attention to attract a book deal or two. A few name changes (Christian and Anastasia were originally Edward and Bella, though the rest of the story had largely nothing to do with the vampire story) and a bit of spice to the story ended up creating the book franchise that took the world by storm.
*I include it here because I consider it to be of a cultural moment and spirit with Twilight, besides having directly originated from it.
Who directed it?
Well, that’s the million dollar question. While Sam Taylor-Johnson, director of Nowhere Boy, was behind the camera, a number of stories have emerged about her on-set battles with author and creator E.L. James, leading to a clash of ideals that shows up in the final film.
Essentially, it seems as though Taylor-Johnson wanted to subvert and play with the original story. James did not. James ultimately won, and Taylor-Johnson was left out in the dust, leaving the series after this film.
And it’s a shame, because it seems as though the ideas Taylor-Johnson brings in are legitimately strong, hamstrung by the clumsy and stupid plotting of the original book.
The Grey-Steele Report.
Thank god for Johnson. Johnson’s Anastasia Steele singlehandedly made this film watchable. She made this potential trainwreck into a mere car crash. She’s sweet, funny, charming and seems to understand what might appeal. Johnson is apparently grateful enough for the clear shot at stardom that she’s giving it her all, overcoming the film and anchoring it something resembling a real character, even though Anastasia has nothing resembling character details anchoring her. Johnson shows how she’s a star and how happy she is for the opportunity.
Whereas Dornan couldn’t seem angrier about the fact that he’s doing it. Forcing him to suppress his natural Irish accent has made him completely stiff in any line reading, and his stated contempt for the nature of the film means that he brings absolutely nothing. Christian Grey is intended to be a cipher for the audience, but Dornan gives us nothing.
He doesn’t even give Johnson anything to work with. She completely outclasses him in every scene they share, which only further serves to underline how much she holds this thing together. They have absolutely no chemistry, and reports from the press tour make it clear that the two devolved into hating each other by the end. Watching the film makes me wonder if there was ever a point where they entertained the thought of liking each other.
It’s hot though, right?
Let’s face it. I could go into the terrible plotting, the regressive sexual politics, the bizarre acting choices. I could even praise Seamus McGarvey’s able cinematography or the surprisingly well-done music selection.
But none of this matters. This is a sex film. Is it sexy?
Well, no. Now, I was briefly fooled. I watched this as sixth in a series with Twilight, and compared to those films’ Mormon sexual politics, this thing is positively filthy.
But taken on it’s own, it really isn’t. Sex on film requires chemistry and comfort, and Johnson and Dornan clearly don’t have either. They’re two very stiff people barely interacting, and the filmmaking around it seems too unwilling to jump out on a ledge and attempt to try anything.
The only point in which the film approaches sexy doesn’t involve a second of touching. It’s a mid-film scene of contract negotiation between Anastasia and Christian wherein they discuss the terms of the Dominant/Submissive contract Christian has laid out for her. There’s legitimate chemistry and attempts to play back and forth between the two. The camera does things that are interesting and expressive. If the whole film were like this, we might have a movie.
But it’s not. When it comes time to show actual sex, the film is too interested in merely capturing it. It’s too much like documentary footage when it needs to be expressive, to show the dynamics between these people. What’s worse is how often music fails to underscore it, barred by the inspired usage of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” during a later scene.
And it’s not even edgy. It’s a film that wants to indulge in an alternative lifestyle, but it dances around it as alternative or edgy or sexy or anything. The entire reaction can be best supposed as “Huh…” which leaves the film feeling like the worst thing it could be: boring. Perhaps this is the best line for this whole wretched experience. It wants to try something. It wants to be something. But it doesn’t have the interest, the smarts, the skill, the ideas or the vocabulary to do it. It’s not ridiculous, it’s not so bad it’s good, it’s not so good it’s good. It’s just boring.
