Movie Reviews: The Twilight Saga in 2025 at Cinemark

First thing first: I know that I haven't posted since like 2023 lol

Sorry yall, I have a couple of unpublished posts in my drafts-- I just haven't posted them because I don't like them enough and, believe it or not, despite any indications contra, there is a standard of quality here at the Bella Life 2 dot blogger dot com.

I really want this post to be ok enough to post though because I really need to share this experience with the world. [If you're reading this after February 2025, it means I had to let it marinate in the drafts folder before I went "Well, whatever, nobody reads this anyway".]

Chronologically, this is the whirlwind I have experienced over the last week or so.

Last Thursday, I saw a recommended news article announcing that Cinemark, the movie theater chain, would be holding a Twilight saga special event--- Saturday, they would show the first movie, Sunday, the second, and so on, all the way until Wednesday, when they would show Breaking Dawn part 2 and conclude the saga.

Reader, I did not waste time with asking philosophical questions like, "Why is Cinemark doing this? The 15 year anniversary was last year" (that was actually the impetus for my 2023 blog post about how much I love the first movie). Instead, I immediately pulled up the website for my local cinemark locale and frantically scrolled to showtimes for Saturday....

And there is was...

showtimes for Twilight (2008)....

and New Moon on Sunday, and Eclipse on Monday, etc. ...

a single tear might have rolled down my cheek...

I knew instantly that I would buy tickets for every single one of them.

I immediately texted the love of my life and asked him to be my date to Twilight (2008) on Saturday. 

He said yes.

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Saturday- Twilight (2008)

This one is the OG. The blueprint, the phenomenon, and my perennial comfort fav. If a movie could be a mythological woman, this movie would be Helen of Troy for emo teens because of the thousand fanfic ships it launched (see 50 Shades of Grey mention below). If you want an actual beat for beat review, please read my review from 2023 here (personally my fav own blog post).

https://thebellalife2.blogspot.com/2023/12/movie-review-twilight-2008.html?m=1

When the summit mountain logo popped up on the screen for the first time over the mountains with that blue tint, I grabbed my partner's hand and sharply inhaled. This is gonna sound so corny because I'm talking about it in the context of the Twilight movies, but hear me out-- there is something deeply personal and cool about sharing something you love with people that you love. So sitting in that theater with someone that I love, experiencing something that I love, together-- felt COOL as hell.

We watched it in XD (not imax, but a way bigger screen than usual). The crazy thing is that the movies weren't even made for XD, but somehow it's spiritually what I needed to see. I usually watch this movie on my laptop, so it actually was a new experience seeing it in XD. I could see the contact lenses in Kristen Stewart's eyeballs. I could tell from the state of his skin that Robert Pattinson was not frozen in time at 17, but actually based on the concealer they had to cake onto a giant zit on her chin for a portion of the movie, K Stew actually was 17.

I didn't mention this in my original review post, but I love the low budget practical effects they had in this movie. This is the one out of the franchise that has the lowest budget, but it looks and is the best. Like the fight scene in the dance studio---- they have to do weird mirror tricks so that you can't see the cameras. The scene where James and/or Edward bite Bella, they use string cheese to simulate her skin. The scene in the cafeteria when the apple falls off the table and up Edward's leg into his hands was a real practical shot that required like 11 takes. The scene where Edward stops the van was practical effects too. It's old school tactics, but it looks great. The directorial choices are fun af. It's the perfect amount of funny and goofy and romantic and dramatic.

I mentioned this in the OG review post, but the soundtrack for this movie is truly unreal. I read in an article (so take it with a grain of salt because my source is basically just "the internet") that the inclusion of Flightless Bird, American Mouth by Iron and Wine was actually done at the suggestion of Kristen Stewart, and I cannot get over how incredibly cool that is.

Thoughts from someone who isn't a stan: my partner thought that it was really creepy that Edward basically breaks into her house for months to watch her sleep with her completely unaware.

Where did I originally watch this movie in 2008: Allen theaters near the Clovis mall. I must have gone on a Friday night with a group of my friends. The theater was sold out or close to selling out, and it was all other girls from my high school.

Overall assessment: God save Catherine Hardwicke! I strongly believe, based on the following four movies in the franchise, that if Catherine Hardwicke had not hit this one out of the park, the franchise would not have turned into the cultural juggernaut that it did. She NAILS it. After the fun end credits rolled and the lights came back on, I whispered "sublime" to myself. To any extent that Catherine Hardwicke influenced the casting of Nikki Reed as Rosalie, the franchise is indebted to her because she is SUCH a good Rosalie in the later movies (and seeing Nikki Reed in a terrible blonde wig will never not be hilarious to me).

(I will watch any Catherine Hardwicke/Nikki Reed project.)

Objectively the best movie out of the franchise. <3 (Damn yall, is this like unironically my fav movie of all time???)

Fit I wore: I actually had to kind of think about how I would dress for this one. I have a Twilight t-shirt, but that felt  too easy. I needed to reference a deep cut to communicate to the universe how deeply I love this franchise. In homage to Bella wearing an oversize bowling shirt and skinny jeans to her first day at Forks High, I wore a bowling short from a local family owned business and a pair of skinny jeans with an ancient (circa 2004) pair of chucks.

Miscellaneous: when we were in line for popcorn, the teen kid working behind the stand asked me which movie we were watching. I enthusiastically took the bait, y'all know I love to yap about Twilight. She was like "oh, Twilight the old movie? It's so cool that they show old movies in theaters sometimes" I was like "BRO YES. I watched this the first time in theaters in 2008" and she went "omg I was born in 2008".....

In the teen’s defense- even Cinemark seemed confused that this was back in theaters.

After this movie I finally had the state of mind/time to coordinate and plan out my weekend/week and when I would see the rest of the movies. (I was violently hungover on Saturday, but actually feel like seeing this movie in XD w/ theater snacks healed me.) This theater was not crowded, there were really only maybe a dozen other people and the theater was huge so it felt sparse. So I was not feeling pressed when I pulled up the schedule for Sunday and picked the earliest XD showing. And I still was not pressed until I scrolled to Monday for Eclipse (objectively the worst movie out of the franchise) and saw the only showing, and saw that the good seats were slim pickings. But then I got really pressed when I scrolled to Tuesday and Wednesday for Breaking Dawn and saw that they were almost sold out.

Luckily I snagged tickets to every movie.

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Sunday- New Moon (2009)

This one was Super Bowl Sunday, so D went to a Super Bowl party early, and I went to an early showing of this. I went with some homies and it was a blast!

The change in director is abrupt (shoutout Catherine Hardwicke supremacy), but I appreciate that each movie/book has a different director, who does their own thing while weirdly staying cohesive with series arching themes (bitchin soundtrack, dramatic and unhinged characters, varying degrees of camp).

This one was also in XD. Again, I immediately started grinning like this when the summit logo came on in the beginning:    :D.    

Thoughts from someone who isn't a stan: the gang I was with agreed that Jacob feels bisexual. Like all of the werewolves like to grapple with each other a lot, kind of greco-roman wrestling style. Plus Jacob spends a lot of the movie being like "Bella I was born this way!"

Where did I originally watch this movie in 2009: a weird old movie theater in South Bend, Indiana with a group of my college friends. The theater was old and weird, like everything was weird colors, similar to that old Goosebumps episode about the haunted movie theater. 10 out of 10 spookies.

Overall assessment: ok so this happened like almost a week ago and so much has happened in my life since then, this week has been like that tiktok audio of Lady Gaga going "club, club, nother club, bus, club", like I just have been incredibly booked and busy. Unfortunately I did not document my thoughts anywhere. Prolly my second fav of the franchise after the og first one.

Fit I wore: I dressed up like Jacob for this one. Sleeveless muscle shirt, jean cut offs, Adidas sneakers. It was like 70 degrees in February this weekend (God help us).

Obvi my muscle tone is lacking, but I can actually make my triceps pop now.

Miscellaneous: This is when I first started noticing that watching the movies at 17 compared to 33 is a markedly different experience. Edward is actually a shitty boyfriend. Like Bella and Edward are co-dependent. He leaves in a really shitty way. Bella has like CPTSD, Charlie really should have gotten her into therapy or something. And while I understand how when you're a teen girl and your boyfriend who you are codependent with dumps you in a really shitty way, it's incredibly easy to convince yourself that your platonic bff is the guy who is obviously in love with you-- it's a shitty experience all around because you won't just cut the guy loose and let him move on, but you also like are drowning in a sea of despair, and the entire time you're crying over a guy who you've convinced yourself doesn't care if you're still breathing or not--- idk man... are the teen girls of America ok? Am I ok?

I always forget that Dakota Fanning is in this franchise.

Edward really is a gemini man.

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Monday- Eclipse (2010)

My partner came with me to this one. It was not XD, but it was still in a theater on a big screen in an almost full theater. This one is objectively the worst one but I was still immensely pumped to watch (seriously I love this franchise). Watching this one in theaters was also a fun experience because I just do not rewatch this one a whole lot. The last time I watched this one was during the height of the COVID pandemic circa 2020 when I binged the series one weekend with my quarantine bubble. While a weekend binge was a blast (each movie is about 2 hours long, so 2 x 5 = a weekend endeavor), watching them all back to back to back like that turns it all into a blur. By the end your brain is mush, you cannot process or really appreciate the stylistic nuances of each movie, you can't really comprehend why they are in the conundrums that they are in (if you actually lock in, the plot does kind of make sense haha). Watching them one a day was still, in retrospect, a frenzy, but it felt like the perfect pace because it was spaced out enough for me not to burn out or blur, but it was close enough for me to notice the stylistic and canonical continuity across the series. Like Bella wears the same bracelet and distinctive ring on her index finger in 1 and 2, her bedroom decor is ALWAYS the same in every movie, Edward is always driving a Volvo, Jacob drives the same motorcycle throughout the series, the soundtrack always bangs and multiple movies use Flightless Bird, American Mouth and Edward's little piano ditty across the franchise.

Now if you haven't seen this series, or if you are for some inexplicable reason an Eclipse apologist, then let me explain my beef with this one. The love triangle is at its campiest here. I find the bad wigs and makeup personally offensive. But I find Robert Pattinson's sideburns in this one to be extra personally offensive.

(I’m not the only one who hates them)

This is the one where I'm like "okay I kinda get why people clowned this franchise".

Even though I love to rag on it though, this one is still actually good. Like I completely forgot that the underlying conflict in this one is that Victoria is running around Seattle creating a newborn army to take down the Cullens and Bella. I like how this one makes Seattle look at night, like a small sleepy rural town. I like how this one has fun themes, like when Bella cuts herself to district Victoria during their fight just like the Chief's wife in the legend she hears from Billy Black, or how Victoria is using Riley just like Maria was using Jasper. We even get the Volturi popping in at the end.

Which actually reminds me-- this series cast is stacked. Aside from the leads, they have Anna Kendrick as Jessica, Selena from the Selena Netflix series as Angela, Wesley Snipes from 30 Rock as Aro, Dakota Fanning, Bryce Dallas Howard in this one as Victoria.

Thoughts from someone who isn't a stan: So no more cool end credits at the end like in the first one?

Where did I originally watch this movie in 2010: So I'm pretty sure that I watched this one in the Allen Theaters in Clovis while I was home on a break from school- so like spring break or summer break maybe, with a group of my home town friends.

Overall assessment: Better than I remembered it. Great experience. Really redeemed the movie in my mind. Idk if it's because I needed to see it in theaters again, maybe this is just when I started to blur out during the b2b marathon, maybe I have grown to appreciate the camp.

Fit I wore: Twilight tshirt, normcore jeans.

Miscellaneous: this is about when I figured out that the previews before the movie would be the exact same every time. This was honestly the most painful part of the experience each time. I had to watch the same preview for a Zachary Levi movie about how his son has autism four times! (we missed it the first movie because we sat down toward the end of previews)

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Tuesday- Breaking Dawn Part 1 (BD1) (2011)

My local theater has discounted tickets on Tuesday so this place was hoppin. Luckily I smuggled snacks in my purse this time so I bypassed the snack line and went straight to my theater (I have to have snacks when I watch a movie in a theater, it's a weird pavlovian response I've developed).

The theater was almost sold out this time, and when I got tickets on Saturday, I snagged the last ticket available that wasn't in the front two rows (even those seats got snagged).

D had a sports league tonight so I went solo to this one and discovered that going to the movies by yourself is actually a pretty good experience. You basically get to do everything on your own time and it's super chill.

Breaking Dawn part 1 is so out of pocket you guys. I forgot how down bad both of them are. They basically get married at 18 because they really want to have sex but Edward is anti-premarital sex for some reason that he cannot articulate other than "Bella, I am from a different time"--- ?????. I'm not even exaggerating. Bella tries to seduce Edward in Eclipse and he's like "look lady you gotta put a ring on this if you want the goodies”. So this movie begins with their wedding. Which happens weeks after their high school graduation (which happens in Eclipse).

Which actually leads me into my next point- the author of the books, Stephanie Meyer, is famously Mormon. I wonder to what extent, if any, her Mormonism influenced the books, namely with the three main themes below. 

1) Like no tea no shade. I'm just pointing out the lack of pre-marital sex throughout the series, and when they do finally have sex, she immediately gets pregnant. 

One time I read a think peace about how pop culture in the oughts was actually really pro-life. MTV was airing the shows 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom. A candidate for Vice President of the US had a teen daughter who was pregnant, and became a pro-life and pro-abstinence spokesperson. The movie Juno was rly big and the early plot device propelling everything is Juno bailing on her appointment to terminate her pregnancy.

2) Which leads into the second major plot point in this movie. Bella gets pregnant but basically it's the first known pregnancy with a human mother and a vampire father ever in the history of civilization because vampires do NOT hook up with humans like ever (the books go into a lot of weird explanation for how this could happen). And then the pregnancy starts doing scary things like sucking all the nutrition out of her body and breaking her bones and growing frighteningly fast. Edward and Jacob are like "dude you gotta terminate this because you will die", but in way less nice terms. And Bella and Rosalie are like "absolutely not, we desperately want this baby with every fiber of our being”. Everyone knows she's going to die, it's just a question of whether she can give birth and Carlisle can turn her before she fully dies. Honestly this plot point is unhinged but whatevs. I'll allow it.

3) and the OBSESSION. with finding one's star destined soul mate. The werewolves have a thing called imprinting where they will just involuntarily imprint on their soul mate. They become devoted to their soul mate. They age with their soul mate and die with their soul mate. The werewolves who have not imprinted yet are miserable without it. It's like their end all be all. These people believe they are not complete without their imprintee. You even see this thought process with the vampires. Like the Cullens have been alive and monogamous for a century. Every couple. The Cullens are always telling Bella how happy they are that Edward finally found someone, like he was perpetually alone and ergo incomplete to them. The entire beef with Victoria starts because the Cullens kill James, Victoria's mate. At Edward and Bella's wedding, Irina, a cousin from Denali has a tantrum because she sees one of the werewolves who killed Laurent, her mate, in New Moon. Vampires are seemingly immortal, monogamous, and perpetually deeply in love. Clearly killing a vampire's mate is some sort of deep, existential affront. Later on in BD2, Edward apologizes to Carlisle for causing all the Volturi heat, Carlisle basically tells him "look son, I know this will cause death and destruction to all of our friends and family, but you deserve to have your mate"-- like bro! The ending of BD1 is only possible because to the werewolves, not killing a werewolf's imprintee is as sacrosanct as it is for vampires.

https://www.instagram.com/shadow_act/reel/Czg2tiusyEo/?hl=en

I've seen some ppl point out how this series is kind of problematic. Like Edward and Bella have an unhealthy relationship, he is extremely controlling. And Stephanie Meyer is pushing shit like "you're not complete if you don't imprint on someone". I get that it's a fluffy fantasy romance series for teen girls, but maybe this is emblematic of why my group of teen girls kind of had to untangle ourselves from alot of these kind of beliefs.

Thoughts from someone who isn't a stan: The theater was exclusively stans this time.

Where did I originally watch this movie in 2011: a theater in DC with my cool uncle's friend and her preteen daughter during one of my school breaks. They both audibly lost it when Jacob breaks away from the pack with the bad CGI and corny voice overs lol (I also giggled during this part this viewing and thought of them).

Overall assessment: still inhaled a little deeper at the summit logo at the beginning. LOVED the use of Flightless Bird, American Mouth at their wedding <3 leaned into the camp for this one.

Fit I wore: thick jumper, baggy jeans, sneakers. We got a sudden cold snap.

Miscellaneous: I did not realize that Anna Kendrick and her high school friends are in every one of these except for BD2. 

I love the ending with Bella's bright red eyes. Iconic.

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Wednesday- Breaking Dawn Part 2 (BD2) (2012)

Home stretch, final one. I meditated a bit in my car before walking into the theater.

You'd think that after doing this 5 times in a row, I'd be able to time my arrival so that I got there after the bulk of the previews but before the movie starts--- general anxiety and eagerness to see this movie did not allow me to do that. The closest I got was this time when I walked in right as the lights went down.

I sat in between two groups, solo. One group was 3 teen boys and 1 of their girlfriends (????) and the other side was two women and I swear that the lady next to me ripped the gnarliest silent but deadly fart I have had the misfortune of encountering....

Like wtf dude. You're in a crowded theater and you can't go to the hallway to let it rip bro????? I had to hold my breath until I was light headed. I leaned away and had to block my nose with my hand as subtley as I could. The teen boy next to me turned and looked at her in horror. It was rancid.

Luckily that happened right at the end of the previews because if she had done that during the movie I would have been really pissed.

The cast in BD2 is fun. On top of the usual cast of characters we get Mickey Milkovich from Shameless as a creepy Romanian vampire, Lee Pace as a hot vampire, and Rami Malek as an Egyptian vampire.

This one actually made me weirdly emotional. The entire idea is that the Cullens travel the globe collecting their friends to stand with them against the Volturi, who are coming to kill them. These other vampires from across the globe come to Forks to back the Cullens up, even though they know it means probable death, in the name of friendship, family, and freedom from tyranny. Even the werewolves, their natural enemy, show up for them, mainly because the Volturi are the greater evil, but also probably because they've kind of grown attached to the Cullens. They may be vampires, but they're their vampires. In the ultimate fight scene, where the Volturi and the Cullens and Co. are just in a free for all melee, I got the most sad when Seth and Leah Clearwater, as wolves, get sniped by the Volturi.

Dakota Fanning, you leave my Clearwaters alone!

I felt surprisingly emotional when Bella goes to meet Alice's PI in Seattle and finds out the grand plan for Renesmee and Jacob to run, without Bella and Edward, presumably because Alice has seen the future and knows they won't survive the Volturi. Kristen Stewart's face falls in the perfect way. <\3

Thoughts from someone who isn't a stan: The theater was exclusively stans again.

Where did I originally watch this movie in 2012: a theater in DC with my cool uncle's friend and her preteen daughter during one of my school breaks again. I remember people in the theater gasping when they ripped Carlisle's head off.

Overall assessment: I loved the flashbacks to the entire series in this one. I loved that the end credits were like the cool ones at the end of Twilight, but for the entire series. 

Fit I wore: another thick jumper and skinny jeans. Heavy parka. Burrrrrrrr.

Miscellaneous: seeing Aro rip off Carlisle's head on the big screen was just as great as I remember it the first time. The free for all melee is a series high point.

Lee Pace actually has the most romantic line in this entire series, spoken to one of the Denali cousins- "Woman, if we survive this, I will follow you anywhere." <3

I suspended belief so much for this series, but the one thing that pissed me off for being too unbelievable was when Jacob, as a wolf, with Renesmee strapped to his back, and fading because Seth and Leah have died and he is telepathically tied to them, somehow both survive an attack from a vampire that absolutely should have taken them both out.

Renesmee was a wild name in 2012, but if you've ever been on the Tragedeighs subreddit, then you know that it could be far worse.

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Closing thoughts:

I cannot overstate the cultural importance and legacy of Twilight. Not only did it seep through into parody movies and comedies, it probably launched the vampire craze of the oughts that also gave us True Blood on HBO and Vampire Diaries on the CW. I think it held up a mirror to who we as a society were in the oughts (pro-life in a weirdly counter culture way, clinging to traditional or even antiquated thoughts like destined soul mates and traditional nuclear family units). The Rob-sten relationship was a frenzy in its own right. I think I alluded to this in my original Twilight review from 2023, but I do sometimes think about how crazed the public was about their relationship, and how young they both were. I also remember the cheating scandal, and it's even stranger in retrospect- like wtf was going on?? Sometimes I wonder if someone was blackmailing her or something. If her agent or some sort of powers that be told her "look Kristen, for xyz compelling reason, we need you to get caught in this public cheating scandal with your rando director". Maybe she really was just having an affair with that guy. Idk, all I'm saying is that the entire thing was BIZARRE. And if you look at the pics, she does not look like she wants to be there at all. I think she's even looking directly at the paparazzi cameras in some shots....

If you have any theories about this, fr DM me!

Watching this series in theaters all over again brought so much joy to my heart. I seriously sat in the theaters grinning like this the entire time:    :D . 

Getting to share my favorite movie series in theaters with D also felt great. Sometimes when I'm remembering beloved experiences from before I met him, it makes me wish that we could have experienced it together. Like sometimes I feel sad that we grew up on different continents and he couldn’t be my high school prom date. This series was so important to me as an emo teen, and it clearly still is even as an adult. This felt like the universe giving me a gift--- like the universe said "We can't retroactively make him your high school prom date, but we can give you another crack at Twilight in theaters with him." And that's plenty for me <3

Bella Life 2 Rating: 20 out 10. 

THANK YOU CINEMARK!