Vegetarian Vampires...Yeah, Right

Far be it for me to judge a book by the movie extracted from it. And who am I to criticize Stephenie Meyer, an author whose sales are more in the 50 million range versus the (perhaps) 50 books I sold last year? So let me stick to the movie itself.

To steal a line from my younger friends’ texting…WTF???!!?

A VEGETARIAN vampire. Gimme a break, but if Meyer’s (and the producer’s) visualization of a “vegetarian” vampire is one who sucks only animal blood, then let’s see it. I know it’s rated PG-13 for the tween crowd, but even most of them have seen hyenas tearing into a zebra on Wild Kingdom. Once or twice the film shows blood on the vampires’ lips, but damn, I’ve seen more blood than that when I cut myself shaving.

Trashing nearly 100 years of movie tradition and probably another 100 of vampire lore, the undead in this flick CAN come out in the sun. The only reason they don’t is because when sunlight hits their skin, they glisten “like diamonds” and people would immediately know they are different. Ahhh… Wrong again, bucko! Everybody knows vampires don’t come out in the sun BECAUSE SUNLIGHT KILLS THEM. Just like silver bullets and wooden stakes to the heart.

Then there’s the scene where Bella (the love struck human) visits vampire Edward’s home. It’s not a LAIR…oh, no. It’s a 7,500 square-foot mountain villa with lots of glass, sculpture, and bright colors. It’s straight out of Architectural Digest. When Bella expresses surprise, Edward says, “What were you expecting? Coffins, dungeons, and moats?”

Well..ah…YES! Because (again as everybody knows) vampires sleep during the day in COFFINS because SUNLIGHT KILLS THEM.

And what’s with all this leaping around in the treetops crap? Did the vegetarian vampires eat a family of flying squirrels? Hey Edward, you’re UNDEAD, not superhuman.

And speaking of Edward, British actor Robert Pattinson who played the part said he based his accent and portrayal on James Dean. If there’s a sequel, here’s a tip. Go back and watch East of Eden or Rebel Without a Cause a few more times. The way you played it, it was as if you were auditioning for the next Queer Eye. There’s angst, and then there’s just being a puss. Guess which one you were.

All of this sarcasm just to say this. It’s not that Stephenie Meyer’s characters, at least as they are portrayed in this movie, aren’t interesting and believable, they’re just not believable as vampires any more than if I threw on an eye patch and called myself a pirate. But if I did and made a movie, there would be blood, and swords, and swashbuckling (whatever that is), and my movie would be rated (wait for it), “Aaarrrrrr!”