I’ve read the book - and I’ve hated it. The cover of the book boasts that it’s a “New York Times Editor’s Choice, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, and an Amazon’s Best Book of the Decade… So far”. What bull, I say. Twilight deserves none of these accolades. It was, by far, the worst book I’ve ever read.

IMDB, one of my most trusted movie ratings site, rated the movie 6.0 out of 10, a rating which would never have prompted me to go watch it, had I based my decision solely on that. But honestly, the movie wasn’t that bad. Well, compared to the novel, anyway!

The novel, Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, is written in a style as profound as Francine Pascale’s in Sweet Valley High. With no sophistication whatsoever, it seems to be targetted at readers of language abilities equivalent to that of a 7th grader. Monotonous in narrative tone, full of grammatical and spelling errors, and clumsy in descriptive, the book was repulsive to me. There was no storyline whatsoever, and the protagonists made me want to fry baby rabbits. The fandom surrounding this series of novels, however, intrigued me enough to want to watch the movie, in hopes that perhaps, just perhaps, the story might be told in a manner befitting the fanaticism of teenaged girls worldwide.

Well, indeed as I feared, the movie was equally lacklustre as the book was, although the movie was by leaps and bounds better. Although none of the actors will likely receive Oscar nominations for their performances, they have done well to bring out the characters in the book. Bella was perfectly portrayed as the whiny, loser-ish, pathetic, backboneless girl that Meyer described in the book. The sound and light effects, cinematography, screen play (by Melissa Rosenberg), and direction, too, deserve more than just a passing mention. They actually made the movie watchable if you have nothing better to do on a week night at home.

Set in a small town of Forks in the state of Washington, the director (Catherine Hardwicke) chose to shoot many a scene in the forests surrounding it, and did not go wrong. The forests lent a mystical, mysterious and magical background to the story (but maybe that’s just me) and the little details taken care of brought out the quaintness of the almost-dead town.

One thing to note, however, was that the good-looking cast certainly did not hurt the movie experience. At the beginning, however, they all looked quite different, with the overdone make-up, making all of them look no less than ghastly. As the movie progressed, their make-up artistes must have gotten better, and the cast did look better. My favourite vampires to look at were Alice, the happy vampire, followed by Jasper, the “new vegetarian”.

While neither a fan nor a hater of Robert Pattinson, I much preferred him in his role as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter. He looked much better, and at least died in an honourable way (sort of), rather than being a creepy loser with a whiny girlfriend. (Okay, well, he had a weepy girlfriend Cho Chang).

Peppered with as many comical moments (“Don’t mind Jasper; he’s a new vegetarian”) as somewhat ‘touching’ moments that will melt the hearts of teenage girls living in their world of fantasy romance (“She’s with Edward, so she’s family now; and we take care of family”), Twilight the movie is a must-watch if you’re the sort of girl who thinks that you cannot live without a man (or a male vampire). However, if you are looking for hardcore vampire movies, this might just not cut it. Skip the book, for sure (stay far far away from it) – no matter what you’re looking for, it’s just not worth the time.