Twilight: Critic Reviews

Hardwicke stirs this teen pulp to a pleasing simmer.

A deeply sincere, outright goofy vampire romance for the hot-not-to-trot abstinence set.

It is, in its unworldly way, sweetly idealistic with a charm all of its own: a teen romance to get your teeth into.

Meyer is said to have been involved in the production of Twilight, but her novel was substantially more absorbing than the unintentionally funny and quickly forgettable film.

Twilight works as both love story and vampire story, thanks mainly to the performances of its principals.

A darn good hunk of pop moviemaking.

The movie version gives really good swoon.

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg does a decent job adapting the first book in Meyer's series, and despite a tendency toward cheesy effects, Hardwicke keeps things moving swiftly.

Not that Twilight's fate hangs on intelligibility. It hangs on fangs that aren't bared, and on a bloodlust that isn't indulged.

Gothic wooziness stifles many of Hardwicke's lighter impulses, such as her knack for jiving humor in scenes among friends and family. And some of the more cartoonishly gymnastic CG stunts look plain silly.

Catherine Hardwicke's choppy direction plays all this much too seriously. The film lacks the clarity and cleverness that might have ameliorated the campier moments.

Twilight the movie is cautious, a sort of Tiger Beat-ified Twin Peaks. In its undercooked way, though, it's enjoyable.

Twilight, the first movie adapted from Stephenie Meyer's series of best-selling teen novels, is going to be a big hit with young girls, and deservedly so -- the picture delivers.

The movie was directed by Catherine Hardwicke. She uses her great discovery, Nikki Reed, in the role of the beautiful Rosalie Hale. Reed wrote Hardwick's Thirteen when she was only 14. That was a movie that knew a lot more about teenage girls.

Low-key is not the adjective you'd expect to describe a highly anticipated vampire movie, but there it is.

This adaptation of the best-selling novel by Stephenie Meyer never rises above the level of a teen soaper on the CW.

Amazingly, it feels real -- the actors pull it off.

Director Catherine Hardwick leads her young cast through the story's soap opera elements with honest respect for the material.

Finally, a chick flick with some bite to it.

Twilight will doubtless thrill fans of the books, who have long waited for its release. And while it's not a failure, everyone else will wish that the film had, if you'll excuse the expression, a little more bite.

A disappointingly anemic tale of forbidden love that should satiate the pre-converted but will bewilder and underwhelm viewers who haven't devoured Stephenie Meyer's bestselling juvie chick-lit franchise.

Combines the plot of HBO's True Blood with the intensity level of Saved by the Bell.

There's a playfulness that seems just so right in Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight.

Twilight is the Diet Coke of vampire movies, but central to the film's success is that you believe in the love between Edward and Bella.