《暮光之城》

This new movie, based on a hugely popular series of books by Stephanie Meyer, already has teenage girls waiting in line all over America. The film tells the story of Bella, a shy teenager who thinks she's ugly, who falls in love with a beautiful vampire boy called Edward who sparkles in the light. (Vampires are, apparently, made out of some kind of crystal.) Edward sweeps her off her feet, introduces her to his good vampire family, who only live on animal blood, and protects her from the evil vampires who would do bad things to her.

根据斯蒂芬妮•梅尔的系列畅销小说改编的这部新影片几乎使美国各地的少女们都为它排队购票。影片讲述的是一个认为自己长相丑陋的孤僻少女贝拉的故事，她爱上一个会在夜间发光帅气的吸血鬼爱德华（显然，吸血鬼是出自某种水晶）。爱德华使她为之倾倒，并向他善良的只吸食动物血液的吸血鬼家族介绍她，保护她不受其它邪恶吸血鬼的伤害。

In short, it's a romance fantasy for teenage girls. Edward is the perfect boyfriend, with bad boy style but a good boy heart, and Bella is a stand-in for every spotty adolescent girl in her first flush of hormones. Of course, that Bella is being played by Kristen Stewart, who is quite beautiful, rather spoils the plainness she claims in the books, but the poor boyfriends and husbands dragged to this movie have to have something to look at. Most of the film is focused on the tousled good looks of Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward as an intensely brooding emo teen, although occasionally doesn't seem to be taking the whole thing seriously.

总而言之，这是一部为小女生们创作的爱情故事。爱德华是个完美的男友，有着坏男孩儿的“范儿”但内心善良。而贝拉则代表所有情窦初开满脸雀斑的少女。当然，美丽漂亮的克里斯汀•斯图尔特饰演的贝拉把主人公在小说里所体现的平凡形象给毁了，但总得让那些被拖去陪同观看这部电影的可怜的男友或丈夫们有东西可看吧。影片的绝大部分都聚焦于头发蓬乱帅气的罗伯特•帕丁森，他饰演的爱德华是一个总是陷入不断的沉思当中的少年，但偶尔他又好像不会把所有的事情都当回事儿。

The books are truly terrible; the nadir of an already degraded genre of vampiric fantasy that started with Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire - where the vampires were at least genuinely alien and scary - but with anything interesting or difficult stripped out. The film is mediocre. You don't have to suffer through Meyer's leaden prose, but the direction and cinematography are ripped from a hundred other movies, with everything in poetic shades of black and gray. There's no real driving force to the film, only interminable shots of Bella and Edward staring at each other or embracing romantically-yet-chastely.

该系列故事的小说版真的很糟糕，是自安妮•赖斯的《夜访吸血鬼》推出以来已经名声不佳的吸血鬼小说中最糟糕的一部。《夜访吸血鬼》中的吸血鬼至少还属于令人恐惧的另类，但《暮光之城》剔除了任何有趣或让人感到不适的因素。故事的电影版还算一般，你不用在梅尔沉闷的散文中煎熬，该片还借鉴了许多其它电影的拍摄角度及拍摄技术，使一切都处于诗歌般黑色和灰色的阴影下。影片节奏缓慢，只有贝拉和爱德华默默地注视对方或浪漫圣洁地相拥等没完没了的镜头。

The author is a Mormon, which means a lack of actual sex in the whole thing - except later in the books, where some very weird fetishes come into play. For instance, Bella gets pregnant after becoming a vampire herself, and Edward has to chew through her stomach in order for the baby to come out. Fortunately, none of this is in the movie, making it just boring, not icky. Teenage girls and overly romantic women will love it; everyone else should avoid it like the plague.

作者是个摩门教徒，这就意味整个故事中不会有性方面的内容——除了在后续小说中有一些奇怪的事发生，而且还是一些奇怪的外在事物在起作用。例如，贝拉变成吸血鬼后怀孕了，爱德华通过咀嚼她的胃来促使孩子出生。还好影片中没有这些内容，影片只是无聊，但不讨厌。小女生们和过于浪漫的女人们会喜欢这部电影，但其他人应该像躲瘟疫一样避开。