Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Taylor Lautner
Rated: PG 13
Running Time: 2hrs 1 min

Kristen Stewart (Bella) and Robert Pattinson (Edward) get dangerously close in this scene from Twilight.

Overall rating: C+
FOR a movie about romance, teenagers and vampires, Twilight lacks the requisite intrigue and credibility to successfully win over audiences. Sure, the movie's attractive young stars and Stephenie Meyers's bestselling novel - the movie's source material - might be enough to persuade the teenage crowd to fill auditoriums but serious moviegoers will leave disappointed.

There's no denying the movie has a surface allure but that's about all there is to it.

Some entertaining scenes aside, Twilight is a tepid piece of film-making trying to pass as something delightful and engaging. The director Catherine Hardwicke (Lords of Dogtown) directs Mellisa Rosenberg's screenplay with dark tones and the occasional candy colours and vivid angles, and she gets commendable performances from the two young leads, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, but the movie doesn't allow them to stay true to their youthful charms and energies.

Stewart stars as Bella Swann, a young girl who moves from Arizona to a cold and frosty town called Forks in Washington, where her father (Billy Burke) is the chief of police. While enrolled at the local high school, she meets and falls for Edward Cullen (Pattinson), a mysterious classmate who Bella later discovers hails from a family of century-old vampires, trying to cope with their lust for human blood.

After getting off to quite an interesting start in their friendship, the two quickly become lovebirds. But when their relationship is threatened by a group of outlaw vampires, led by a ferocious 'tracker' named James (Cam Gigandet), their bond is put to the test.

For the most part, Hardwicke helms a slow-moving and occasionally drab film that just seems to be plodding along aimlessly. At times though, the intensity heightens and a fight scene between Edward and James is decently executed - but the overall action in Twilight is frustratingly inconsistent.

As an on-screen pair, Stewart and Cullen's chemistry leaves a lot to be desired. But they give respectable individual performances.

Cullen, as the pale-faced, eternally 17-year-old, gets the externals right, and finds the right balance of mystery, charm and intrigue to bring to the character - but he's no Lestat. Stewart, meanwhile combines sweetness with brawn and naïveté successfully. With the exception of Taylor Lautner (as Bella's childhood friend, Jacob) supporting players do very little to breathe adequate life into their characters.

Overall, Twilight simply lacks the right 'bite'. It feels like Hardwicke is holding back, so the movie never climaxes satisfactorily, and it therefore lacks the wow factor many moviegoers will be seeking. Maybe this one is just for the die-hard fans of Meyer's Ann Rice-like bestsellers, who have fallen in love with her tale of bloodsuckers and high school romance.

After all, who would have guessed that in 2008, Prince Charming would be a vampire?

The fear factor

Feeding the multitude

DANGEROUS PETS