Twi As I Might

So, Twilight 4A has hit cinemas and now my Twitter feed and Facebook page are full of comments about it.

As you may know from previous rants, I'm not a fan of Twilight, nor of the Twilightification of EVERYTHING else that it has affected.

So I have a message for any woman (or man) over the age of 17, who is going to watch or has already been to see "Breaking Dawn":

I hope that you enjoy it and that it lives up to your expectations. This isn't a joke or the start of a rant; if you genuinely find Twilight entertaining then I hope this new film is enjoyable for you. However, as you're watching a film based on a series of books primarily aimed at eleven-year-old girls, you automatically forfeit any right to EVER judge me for reading comic books and watching cartoons. And I will throw it back in your face if you ever try to.

Just saying.

Hoodwinked

Further to my ongoing complaint about the ‘Twilightification’ of everything we hold dear in society; I have now seen this permeate into fairy tales.

“Red Riding Hood” is the ‘gothic reimagining’ of the classic children’s story, with Gary Oldman playing a devout preacher, Amanda Seyfried playing the crimson covered heroine, and lots of c-list television stars popping up for bit parts.

It’s so Twilight that there’s even a love triangle, with one of the boys Red is in love with being “wrong for her”. Cue lots of brooding and sorrowful glances. Oh and the Wolf is now a Werewolf, because…well they’re kinda popular with Team Jacob, right?

Unsurprisingly it’s not very good, however if I was a pre-pubescent girl who was missing her Twilight fix, it would probably be like methadone for me.
  

I Am Number Bore

With “I am Number Four “we see yet another film in the mould of “Twilight”. This time however, it’s aliens rather than vampires that go through the Twilightification process.

I’d do a full plot synopsis, but there’s not much point. John Smith (The dude who played “Stormbreaker” – you don’t need his real name) is a brooding teenager who’s actually an alien, yada yada yada. He falls in love with an attractive high school girl (the pregnant one from Glee) who is ostracised by her peers blah blah blah. He’s hunted by evil aliens, gets a couple of side kicks (a dog and a geek), and then ends up forming a love triangle with another alien… basically there’s nothing new here.

Despite the fact that it’s cliché-ridden and entirely predictable, it’s not unentertaining. The plot moves fast enough and the fact that John is discovering his powers as he goes along makes him much more interesting than Edward from Twilight. That said, I do have a soft spot for Sci-fi, so maybe I forgave it more than it deserved.

Frightfully good fun

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a special advanced preview of the remake of “Fright Night” - just one of the many perks of having Sky. I was interested going into this one as I liked the film as a kid, but wasn’t a massive enough fan to be affronted by the idea of a remake. And in fairness, it’s exactly the sort of film that’s perfect for a remake, as it’s not exactly The Shawshank Redemption in terms of plot or depth.

Anton Yelchin is Charley, a reformed geek who’s managed to snare himself an attractive girlfriend. His ex-best friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is convinced that Charley’s new neighbour is a vampire and sets out to try and prove it to Charley. It’s not long before Ed has gone missing and Charley starts investigating for himself; roping in “professional” vampire hunter Peter Vincent (David Tennant) for help.

There’s a lot to like about Fright Night. The script managed to juggle some excellent shock moments with appropriately dark comedy, and it was no surprise to see that the screenplay had been written by Marti Noxon, who cut her (fanged) teeth doing exactly the same dance on Buffy and Angel. Yelchin is a good lead, and his progression from sceptic to believer is convincing. After this, Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation he seems to be the go-to person for reboots/sequels. David Tennant is excellent comic relief, playing a hybrid of Doctor Who and Russell Brand, and Mintz-Plasse does his funny/geeky thing, and could have done with being in a few more scenes.

Colin Farrell is brilliant as the antagonist, although (if the gossip magazines are to be believed) playing a narcissistic villain isn’t too much of a stretch. Whether you buy into that or not, he’s excellent as Charley’s evil vampire neighbour. Toni Collette is great as Charley’s mum, and it’s weird that each film that I see her in she seems to be getting older yet at the same time skinnier. If I had more time I would chart all of her films on a youth/weight axis.

On the negative side, the 3D is completely unnecessary and actually detracts from the viewing of the film. I’m not going to jump whole-heartedly on the anti-3D bandwagon, but producers do need to bear in mind that 3D comes with a 30% light reduction, so scenes that are dark anyway become really difficult to watch. And horror movies are primarily set in the dark so the two aren’t a natural match. There were a couple of scare moments which were completely lost due to it being so difficult to tell what was going on.

The CGI vampires are also a bit unnecessary, I actually found Farrell a lot more sinister when he was acting as opposed to when they’d CGI’d a shark mouth onto him. Charley’s girlfriend is also a little annoying to start with but redeems herself somewhat once they start fighting the vamps.

However, despite the few flaws I thoroughly enjoyed it. It found the right balance between horror and comedy, and if you watch it in 2D I think you’ll get a lot more out of some of the darker scenes (as in brightness not theme). If anything, after the Twilightification of all horror characters lately, it’s nice to see vampires being scary again.

If you like old school horror, definitely worth a watch.

Word of the week

After my Tween Wolf rant, it was suggested to me that as a culture we should make “Twilightification” an accepted everyday word in the English Language. So, before the Oxford English Dictionary next goes to print, submitted for your approval is my definition of Twilightification:

twi·lighti·fi·ca·tion /ˈtwīˌlīt/əfiˈkāSHən/ 

(noun)

1. The act of ruining an already established and well-loved idea by revamping it to include brooding teenagers with big hair and pouts
2. Purposely moulding something to include damp-squib heroines who are surrounded by attractive males in the hopes of finding an audience with pre-teen girls
3. Destroying popular horror concepts such as vampires by making them friendly, glittery and non-threatening   

I think we can all agree that this needs to be in the dictionary, so we have a true word for this menace that must be stopped before it destroys our society.