Instead of spending Black Friday hunting for deals, me and the Mrs. headed to Pearlridge to fight off the crowds to watch Twilight the movie. Yes, we were about two to three times older than the average Twilighter, but so what? Twilight is a box office beast, and we read the books so why not see how the movie rendition turned out?

The movie reviews said this was an average flick, and I would have to agree with that. I’d give Twilight at most 3 out of 5 stars, maybe even 2.5 stars. I know most movie adaptions of books don’t live up to the hype, and Twilight falls victim as well. There were some high points, but in general, the movie story line felt like it was stuck in fast forward. Everything seemed to skip and jump ahead without enough explanation. If I hadn’t read the book, I doubt if I could have kept up or understood what just happened. Still, the movie is a good starting point for the entire Twilight saga. We’re not talking Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter yet but a decent start.

Some notes and observations.

Bella is hot, Edward not so much. Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan was a good pick. She’s come a long way from Panic Room.

I’ll be in the minority with the teeny boppers, but Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen? Could have done better I think. Problem is in the book, vampires are absolutely stunning. Rob Pattinson has a look, but he’s not the uber-looker and has some flaws which Twilight vampires aren’t supposed to have.

Forks is hip and multicultural. I didn’t give the tiny town of Forks enough credit. In the movie, the Forks High School is a hip place with a multicultural student body. Yes, there are a fair share of blondes, but there’s the Asian Eric, the Hispanic Angela and brother man Tyler who drives the pimped out van that almost kills Bella. Many students walk the soaked campus showing off the iconic iPod white earbuds. Nothing like the small, rural locale that I had stereotyped.

Father figures must be young. Okay, I get Carlisle Cullen’s youthful appearance as an immortal vampire. But Charlie Swan and Billy Black? The respective fathers of Bella and Jacob look way too young for teenager kids. I would have preferred a wiser, more aged Billy Black to represent the Quileute tribe.

The Cullens don’t say much. Except for Edward, the rest of the Cullens didn’t say much in the movie. Carlisle had a few lines then I’d guess Rosalie had the second most lines to say. Alice and Esme contributed some. Emmett had very few words, and Jasper was just there looking terrified. They were all outdone by the goofy Asian Eric. Was he straight, was he gay, was he hip, was he hop? It’s high school, so he’s experimenting, but he did say more than the entire Cullen family.

Need to step up the special effects. So this was a low budget film for the fledgling Summit Entertainment, and it showed in spots. Edward flying through the trees was believable, but superhuman speed needs better effects. Now that New Moon got the go-ahead, the special effects crew really needs to step up to portray a pack of huge shape-shifting wolves.

There is a soundtrack. Yes, Twilight has an official soundtrack with at least 12 tracks and its accompanying score. Yet with all this music to choose from, I don’t recall hearing most of them. I didn’t stick around through the closing credits so many may have played then. But most definitely, Bella’s Lullaby was over played.

Go for a cheap DVD release. When Twilight releases on DVD or Blu-Ray, I’d go with aggressive pricing. Keep costs down at the outset and sell as many copies as you can. I don’t think this is a movie worth paying a premium for so best to go for quantity of sales from the very start.

Would I watch the movie again? Nope. But this is one of the very few movies to get me back in the theater. Go see it to see what I mean.