Twilight

Here we have another movie about angst ridden teenage vampires because...you know...even with all the inherent vampire problems of feeding on humans, having their souls damned to hell, and the weight of immortality, the only thing teen-vamps really care about is whether or not they're popular in high school.

Young Bella (Kristen Stewart) arrives in Forks, a town that is perpetually shaded in fog and rain making it the ideal place for vampires to try and live normal lives. Bella is having all the typical problems of an adolescent who has moved to a new school in the middle of the year, and just when she's starting to learn the ropes, in walk the Cullens, a weird group of kids who show an oddly mature fashion sense and don't mingle with the others much. They are all the foster children of Dr. Carlisle Cullen and, seeing as how they're the hottest kids around, they've taken to pairing up with one another like the close family.

Did I mention they were weird?

Well, they also all have deathly pale skin and occasionally can be caught doing feats involving super-human speed or strength.

In short, for a group of vampires trying to live incognito they seem to be going to great lengths to draw attention to themselves.

Bella is quickly drawn to Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) who is the kind of skinny guy with a big head and HUGE hair that girls seem to get all misty eyed over these days. While watching him, I couldn't help but think that this was the type of role that Hayden Christiansen would have KILLED to get (as opposed to the garbage he's been doing lately like "Jumper" and "Awake"). But the "Twilight" executives seemed to go to great lengths to cast people you've never seen or heard of before (often settling for actors who eerily resemble other famous people) and it worked out fine (because most famous actors don't have any more talent than the waiters who never caught a break and are still tending tables in Hollywood).

Edward is a...get this...VEGETARIAN vampire which means he only eats animals! Haha! By that definition, I'm a vegetarian too. He quickly falls in love with Bella and confesses that he wants to be around her mainly because she's got an intoxicating aroma that drives him into an almost uncontrollable feeding frenzy. Bella is naturally swept off her feet in a way that takes the phrase "he looks at her like a piece of meat" to a whole different level.

Then commence a series of unintentionally funny scenes in which Edward talks about his absurd life which involves going to high school over and over. Yeah, that's what I'd do with immortal vampire powers too. He lives with the head vampire Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) who looks like a cross between Tom Cruise and Eric Bana (with a bit of Mathew McConaughey thrown in depending on the light). Peter Facinelli seems to have elected to try and channel Tom Cruise's Lestat performance from "Interview with a Vampire" and God only knows why he decided to do that (didn't Rutger Hauer ever play a vampire...somebody should try and channel him).

The Carlisle likes to engage in wholesome activities like playing baseball (really!) and during one of these outings they come across a herd of rogue vampires which include James (Cam Gigandet) who looks so much like Brad Pitt that it can't be an accident. Things get complicated when James decides he just has to eat Bella, and all kind of Vampirical warfare ensues.

Oddly, for a movie about vampires, the vampire element doesn't provide the main drive of this film. "Twilight" is a teen romance with all the melodrama and "oh my god I'm just going to DIE!" feelings of despair that we all used to have when we were 16. I guess it's easy to just laugh those things off, but what I've learned is that the actual pain you feel when you're 16 is no different than when you're 32 or 48, it's just with the intervening years that the stakes become bigger. So, one part of me wanted to laugh at this film and dismiss it, and the other part kind of enjoyed it. To a large extent, "Twilight" stays out of its own way. It's little more than a fancy made for TV movie, but it seems to be aware of itself so it more or less works...barely (and I just like the fact that it's got nobody famous in it).