It was my just-turned-12-year-old daughter’s turn to choose a movie, and she chose Twilight.

Kristen Stewart … Bella Swan
Robert Pattinson … Edward Cullen
Billy Burke … Charlie Swan
Ashley Greene … Alice Cullen
Nikki Reed … Rosalie Hale
Jackson Rathbone … Jasper Hale
Kellan Lutz … Emmett Cullen
Peter Facinelli … Dr. Carlisle Cullen
Cam Gigandet … James
Taylor Lautner … Jacob Black
Anna Kendrick … Jessica Stanley
Michael Welch … Mike Newton
Christian Serratos … Angela Weber
Gil Birmingham … Billy Black
Elizabeth Reaser … Esme Cullen

It’s a Vampire film, based on the book, which Natalie read, and enjoyed immensely, and it’s very much geared towards tween girls, and so she loved the book, and so chose the movie.

I really tried to talk her out of it, but she was having none of that, and it is a kind of a reward for her reading, so what can a parent do..

The plot is straight forward, Vampire meets girl, they fall in love, damsel in distress ensues.

For what it was, and I would not see this sort of film except under familial duress, it’s of fairly high quality, well shot, and well acted.

I think that the combat sequences could have been a bit better, but I’m a big fan of Kurasawa’s filming of combat in The Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress, which has a level of realism that would not match the target audience (12 year old girls).

It is what it is, and if you like what that is, and I really don’t, you’ll enjoy it.

The only surprises were that there were some legitimately funny bits to it, and I felt no need to claw my eyes out.