Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Cam Gigandet
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Category: IIA
Confirmation came through last week that Catherine Hardwicke would not be directing the sequel to Twilight, the first in a trilogy of screen adaptations of Stephenie Meyer's series of novels revolving around the romance between a young woman and a vampire who abstains from consuming human blood.
The director's departure - she is to be replaced by Chris Weitz, who presided over Golden Compass, one of last year's more unsatisfactory book adaptations - is sad news. It is Hardwicke's deft application of atmospherics and angst - cornerstones of her previous films such as Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown - that lifts Twilight from being a mundane teen romance with a lightweight narrative.
The odds were against Hardwicke, given that Twilight is more about introducing the franchise's characters and the plot threads that will be explored in sequels. This is why the film goes into full-throttle action mode only in the last hour, when the good vampires - the Cullens family, led by Edward (Robert Pattinson) - go to war with the menacing, human-threatening bloodsucker James (Cam Gigandet) over Bella (Kristen Stewart), Edward's girlfriend and the film's protagonist. Then again, the battle is hardly a satisfying audio-visual spectacle, its presence here only serving to showcase Edward's commitment to Bea and his determination to keep his human-devouring instincts in check.