True, vampires are by nature predators. Also true, in Stephenie Meyer’s novel “Twilight,” Edward Cullen, every teen girl’s romantic dreamboy, is heavy on the brooding and, of course, the entire story turns on Bella and Edward as star-crossed lovers.
That said, while there is no doubt Robert Pattinson does a good job with the impossible–bringing beloved Edward Cullen to life on screen–I found myself as equally turned off by this unsmiling, sad, despairing creature, as I was enamored of him. There is something creepy about the movie’s Edward Cullen, a creepiness that does not come across–or at least not to such a disturbing degree–in the novels (which anyone who follows my posts on Idol Chatter knows I’ve read again and again and yet again). Stephenie Meyer’s Edward is despairing at times, yes, he displays bouts of hostility and viciousness when Bella is threatened, but he also is dashing and debonair, and he spends a good deal of laughing and smiling, too. Meyer injects a playfulness to the Edward Cullen alive in my imagination that Robert Pattinson (under Catherine Hardwicke’s direction) fails to capture.

And I have to admit: Edward Cullen portrayed this way sheds a new, unflattering light on his character–one I (think) I wish I had not been exposed to.
The Edward Cullen of “Twilight: The Movie” is through and through a predator. Sure he is gorgeous and can grab Bella to take her swinging through the trees at a lightning pace. But as I sat in the dark next to squealing teenagers as far as the eye could see, I spent a good deal of the film thinking:
This Edward is creepy. This Edward is stalkerish–but less in the way of “Bella is his whole world” and more in the way of, well, just stalkerish. This Edward is nothing but a brooding, angsty, downer. Seriously, what does Bella see in him other than beauty?
Am I alone in feeling this way? I think the on-screen Edward Cullen made the impossible possible–I think he ruined my imagined Edward Cullen. Or do you disagree? Am I speaking the unspeakable? Should I go see the movie again–give movie Edward a second chance?
Somehow I feel like I am engaged in betrayal by even suggesting these things. What do you think?
For more on the Twilight movie, see Ellen Leventry’s review, which includes her positive take on Kristen Stewart’s portrayal of Bella (and on that topic, I can agree.)