Twilight Movie Review

The below movie review is taken from:
The Journal of Student Ministries - http://www.thejournalofstudentministries.com

Movie Review: Twilight
http://www.thejournalofstudentministries.com/articles/177/1/Movie-Review-Twilight/Page1.html
By Smitty Wheeler
Published on 11/25/2008

PG-13, 120 min.

Several years ago, I vaguely remember my tween-age daughter telling me about Twilight, a new book that she and her friends were reading. Mom had looked it over and assured me it was no big deal. Now, flash forward to opening night of the new big screen version of Twilight and I can tell you from being there, the words “Big Deal” are a HUGE understatement. At our nearest theater, young girls (and their moms) were in line two hours in advance of the theater doors opening and, on a national level, Fandango reported that they had been selling 5 Twilight tickets per second as of early Friday morning, “making Twilight online ticket-seller Fandango's fastest-selling film since The Dark Knight last July.” Yes, it’s a very big deal and the young ladies in your youth group will definitely be seeing this one.Overview: Twilight, while in many ways looking like your typical teen love story, definitely has some new twists. Klutzy, high school student Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) makes the move from her mom’s home in Phoenix, Arizona, to her dad’s in Forks, Washington. Her personality is that of a loner, but she quickly finds the students of her school reaching out to her since she’s “the new girl” in a town of just 3,000. The exceptions to this school wide outreach are the five teenage members of the Cullen family. These five pale, stunningly attractive students seem to have an unnatural magnetism and seem to be held in awe by the entire student body. Bella is drawn to Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) who shares the attraction but initially keeps his distance. The reason, we soon discover, is that Edward and his “family” are really vampires who've chosen to live as part of the human world. While they call themselves "vegetarians" because they only drink the blood of animals, we learn there is still a relentless hunger for human blood. So, as Edward is drawn to Bella romantically, he knows he should keep his distance because of the temptation she presents to the blood-thirsty monster inside him.
Is their forbidden love worth the danger?
Teachable Moments: There are a number of opportunities throughout the movie where you could discuss resisting temptation, including:
-Edward at first fighting his temptation to attack Bella, then his chivalrous desire to set physical boundaries for them. Don’t we as Christians have to set boundaries to avoid temptations?
-The contrast between how Edward resists the thought of making Bella like him and how Bella is completely willing to give herself to him and become a vampire so that she can be with Edward forever.
-The Cullen family making the moral choice to try and live their lives as mortals instead of exercising their ability to dominate those around them.
-The Cullen’s willingness to put themselves in danger to save Bella when she is threatened by marauding (non-vegetarian) vampires.
- There is a very interesting line in the movie, "Death is easy, life is harder." What does that really mean in our walk with Christ?
Viewer Discretion: Obviously this is a movie about vampires, which in and of itself, can be a problem for some Christians. In this movie, they are not representative of demons but are more a tool to set the stage for the forbidden love interest. The word hell and God's name are used a few times. The violence is primarily limited to one vampire fight scene where two vampires fight over Bella and then three of the “good” vampires join in and seem to “break the neck” of the bad vampire. We don’t see much, although they say they will need to “tear him apart and burn the pieces." There is some sensuality when Edward and Bella end up on her bed and get too carried away with their kiss. Edward retreats but then Bella and Edward spend a night—fully clothed and on top of the covers—next to each other on her bed. Finally, a mother asks her daughter if she's "being safe" immediately after hearing there's a boy in the picture.
General Appeal: If your kids are fans of the book Twilight, they’ll probably be thrilled at the movies release and will have seen it before you read this. It also goes without saying that tween and teenage girls will love this movie. From the screams as each character was introduced to the swooning as we first peered deeply into Edwards eyes, these girls were hooked.Most of the scattered boys (and Dad’s) in the audience were probably there because someone made them. However, as the credit rolled, they just may have come away with a greater appreciation of the movie than they originally thought they would.

The Final Grade: Entertainment value- C Ministry value- B


********************************************************************************************
-Below is taken from Youth Specialties

INSIDE YOUR TEEN'S WORLD...Random things you may not have heard about...
Study: Many Young People Want To Do Their Banking Over IMhttp://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081118-millennials-driving-tech-adoption-in-financial-industry.html
Saying Goodbye to “TRL” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081117/ap_en_ot/music_trl_finale

LEARN THEIR LINGO...Some slang and texting lingo for you to speak (or at least understand)
- Thrash = v. To win some form of competition by a large margin. “Dude, I thrashed Robert on the court!” 2. v. To harm, or to harshly disrespect someone or thing. 3. n. A style of metal rock music.
- Kicks = shoes

A LITTLE ENCOURAGEMENT...AND HUMOR
"I don’t believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models…"~ Charles Barkley
*********************************************************************************************