Twilight: The Acting Part 2

Well, here's part two of my opinions about the acting in the movie Twilight. I should probably mention that I'm not as much of a die-hard fan as most fans are of this movie and book series. I like them, I really do, but I've only read the books twice, and watched the movie about 10 times. Now that viewing does sound like a lot, but in comparison to many others it's very minimal. Anyway, back to the actors...

TAYLOR LAUTNER

I must admit that in the books I really don't like Jacob Black. He's pushy, doesn't respect Bella's wishes, and is very immature. In the movie we don't really get to see much of him, so even though he plays a big part in Bella's discovery of Edward's secret, that's not really shown in the movie. The actor himself is very young, so it's hard for me to really comment on him, knowing that he really hasn't had too much experience, but he did alright. He clearly acted like he had a crush on the Bella character, and he does a pretty impressive death glare towards Edward at the end. Unfortunately in what I've seen of the actor he seems to be a bit in love with himself. Not that I'm saying he necessarily is, but that's the impression I've got so far. I'll be interested to see what happens with the character in the second movie, since he plays a very big role.

RACHELLE LEFEVRE

I've seen this actress in a few things, her name's very familiar, but the only thing that I can immediately remember is seeing her in Charmed as a ghost, and that's only because I watched it recently. The character of Victoria was very cat-like, which I liked, and she had the whole creepy vampire thing going for her. A good choice for the role. I have a few negative comments to make, however, but I think they're more in the directing section rather than the acting section, so I'll save them for later.

GIL BIRMINGHAM

Okay, did anyone else start laughing when they saw Billy Black's death stare? I'm used to death stares in which the subject narrows their eyes (like Edward's return death stare). Billy's eyes widened instead, so it just looked comical to me. The actor did fine, given that he couldn't actually do a lot with the character, and he seemed wise, but also judgemental.

EDI GATHEGI

I didn't really find Laurent interesting, but that's probably because he never really had much of a part. He's good at acting casual, and all that, but really there wasn't much to him. I suppose not every single character could be interesting, that probably would have overloaded the movie.

MIKE WELCH

Mike Newton was actually really likeable, in my opinion. Obviously he was somewhat likeable in the books, but in the movie he seemed more so, like you could actually be "Team Mike". Was anyone else almost wishing that she'd said yes to his prom proposal? He was so endearingly nervous about asking, and that adorable smile was just the best. Unfortunately for him I'm Team Edward all the way, but he definitely raised the bar for third place. He seems like a very confident character, and even though I'm not a huge fan of Jessica's, it's nice that he had someone in the end. Oh, and “how you likin' da rain, girrrrl?” was too funny.

The other characters were really just fill-in to me, even Bella's mum (who seemed kinda like fill-in in the books anyway). I didn't really like Eric's first speech, when he interrupts with “chillax...” etc, it seems like he was supposed to interrupt, because Bella wasn't objecting enough for that kind of reaction from him. Unless he's the kind of guy who objects to female reactions to things, which would make him sexist. Other than that, I really can't say that I have an opinion on the others.

I've been reading the Twitter accounts of some of the actors playing the Volturi, and it sounds like they're going to be really creepy to look at, which makes the second movie sound much darker than the first. That will be interesting to see, because in a lot of ways Twilight was a very dark movie anyway. I think the main problem that the actors faced was scheduling issues. A lot of the time they didn't actually have long to shoot, which severely cut back on character development and characterisation. As always, looking forward to the improvements in the second movie, New Moon.

Part 3 - The rest of Twilight coming soon... :)

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