Fall is here, and love between humans and vampires is in the air. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) has always been a little bit different, never caring about fitting in with the trendy girls at her Phoenix high school. When her mother remarries and sends Bella to live with her father in the rainy little town of Forks, Washington, she doesn't expect much of anything to change. Then she meets the mysterious Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a boy unlike any she's ever met. Intelligent and witty, he sees straight into her soul. Soon, Bella and Edward are swept up in a passionate and decidedly unorthodox romance. Edward can run faster than a mountain lion, he can stop a moving car with his bare hands - and he hasn't aged since 1918. So, yeah, a little unorthodox. Oh, wait, guess what? He's a vampire! Like the rest of his kind, he's immortal. But he doesn't have fangs, and he doesn't drink human blood (despite the desire to do so). Edward and his family are unique among vampires in their lifestyle choice.

To Edward, Bella is what he has waited 90 years for - a soul mate. But the closer they get, the more Edward must struggle to resist the primal pull of her scent, which could send him into an uncontrollable frenzy. But what will Edward and Bella do when James (Cam Gigandet), Laurent (Edi Gathegi) and Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre), the Cullens' mortal vampire enemies, come to town, looking for her? A vampire love story ensues.

"They're called eardrums! You need 'em to watch!" I couldn't help but laugh at the poor girl who yelled the preceding statement. Rather than bring attention to the fact that we don't exactly need eardrums to WATCH a movie, I decided simply to agree with her sentiment that the shrill banshee-like screeches from the young girls in attendance were quite annoying.

I don't know if you've ever been in a theater full of screaming prepubescent girls, but it's a scary thing. I have no doubt that had I yelled something like, "This movie blows!" I would have been summarily murdered. I may be a tough guy, but even the great Johnny Betts likely can't withstand an onslaught of 250-300 crazed girls scratching and clawing with reckless abandon. I dared not tempt fate. Especially since I was one of about eight guys in attendance and would have had no one to come to my defense.

I've never read any of the books, so I entered the theater with very few expectations. I walked out of the theater thinking, "It was all right, but I was anticipating a little more action." It is HEAVY on romance, and very light on the conflict between the good and bad vampires. I liked the mythology behind the story, but I was hoping it'd go to places that it didn't have the time to travel. I wanted more vampire fights! I wanted deeper conflict between the Indians and the vampires! But I'll tell you one thing, the young girls LOVED it.

Lines such as "your scent is like a drug to me" and "I'm a lion that fell in love with a lamb" had girls literally sighing and gasping throughout the theater. They had some of the few guys in attendance nearly vomiting, but none of them had "target audience" tattooed on their chest. So you know the only fair thing to do? Ask the target audience its opinion. My sister, who has read all the books and gave me a "get me into the screening or suffer a painful death" ultimatum (OK, maybe she wasn't that forceful about it), told me she thought the film was "pretty good" but not nearly as good as the book because of the lack of character development.

According to her, the movie's biggest letdown is "you don't get as much attachment to the characters" as you do in the book. And that's understandable since a lot of material had to be cut out. But she was happy that they really didn't change anything from the book.

Both TMB and my mom (surprisingly) enjoyed it. My mom is now eager to read the books and commented that she thought vampire boy (Robert Pattinson) looked like James Dean. TMB thought one of the other vampires (Jackson Rathbone - the one with the always pained expression) looked like Edward Scissorhands. My good buddy Michael Donahue simply gave the advice that if you want to be cool in high school these days you should just be really pale and wear lipstick. I would add that you should probably mix that with the right amount of brooding and standoffishness. For some reason, girls want mystery and aloofness. Silly me, I would have thought a guy telling a girl how badly he wanted to drink her blood would be a huge turn off, but that's what passes for romance in 2008. A new day has dawned.

The bottom line is if you loved the books then you'll enjoy the movie. By no means should you make this a "guys' night out" selection though. In fact, most males probably won't get much out of it at all - unless you agree to take your wife or girlfriend. That should score you a few points. This is basically a lesser version of The Notebook for younger girls. With vampires. And cheesier dialogue. There. Any questions?

• Twilight is based on the current #1 New York Times Bestselling series (30 weeks and counting) with over 5.5 million books in print by Stephenie Meyer.



• There are over 100 fan sites devoted to Twilight - four fewer than the number devoted to Johnny Betts.



• Johnny Betts would make an awesome vampire. He'd be a vampire who hunted down serial killers and other lowlifes and would feast on their blood, helping solve some of society's ills in the process.



• Kristen Stewart was in Into the Wild with Emile Hirsch who is in Milk with Josh Brolin who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.

Rated PG-13 for some violence and a scene of sensuality, Twilight's content is on the level of what you'd expect a vampire novel written by a Mormon chick to be. There's no profanity (other than one usage of h - e - double hockey sticks), and there's a scene where chicky and vampire start making out, but it gets reigned in pretty quickly. Your biggest question is do you want your kids exposed to vampires fighting each other, killing humans (even if there's very little blood), and talking about their bloodlust.

The trailer I saw led me to believe this would have quite a bit of action. It didn't. Fans of the book won't care though.

This one's easy. Do you love the book series? Go see the film. Are you a guy with a girl/wife who loves the book series? Go see it with her. Are you a guy who has never heard of the books and you have nothing to do on Friday night? Go see Quantum of Solace instead.