‘Twilight’

Judging by the run on opening-night tickets (and the high-decibel screams that greeted a recent local preview), plenty of folks don't care what kind of movie "Twilight" is, only that it is.

They're the ones who have made Stephenie Meyer's novel (and its three sequels) a young-adult publishing phenomenon on the order of Harry Potter and his pals.

For those of us unacquainted with the tale in its original literary form, however, the movie emerges as a fanciful, if fitfully engaging, amalgam of teen angst and vampire lore.

And you thought Romeo and Juliet had problems. Try getting a massive crush on your dreamy biology lab partner -- and discovering he's been undead since the Spanish flu epidemic of 1917.

Such is the dilemma in which high school junior Bella Swan ("Into the Wild's" Kristen Stewart) finds herself.

Her life in flux after her mother remarries, the emotionally adrift Bella moves from Phoenix to Washington's perpetually misty Olympic peninsula to live with her father (Billy Burke), a small-town sheriff.

Despite her new-kid-in-school status, Bella finds a surprisingly warm welcome from her classmates -- except for Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire's" ill-fated Cedric Diggory).

A pale, brooding loner (except for his equally pale, equally brooding foster siblings, that is), Edward seems practically allergic to, yet drawn to, the beguiling Bella.

Similarly, Bella can't quite figure out what it is about Edward that haunts her. But she's determined to find out.

Yes, young love can really suck sometimes.

And, as Bella and Edward inevitably discover, their growing bond could prove dangerous -- for themselves and others.

Especially when you're worried about resisting your raging hormones -- and equally worried about how long your boyfriend can heroically resist his raging impulses to treat the red corpuscles coursing through your bloodstream as his very own private Big Gulp.

Not surprisingly, director Catherine Hardwicke treats both issues with equal emphasis.

A former production designer ("Tombstone"), Hardwicke made a striking 2003 directorial debut with "Thirteen" -- which she wrote with co-star Nikki Reed, who turns up in "Twilight" as Edward's petulant sibling Rosalie.

In that movie, in "Lords of Dogtown," even in "The Nativity Story," Hardwicke demonstrated her affinity for the everyday traumas of teen life.

That same facility serves her well in "Twilight." Even when screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg ("Step Up") veers toward the moodily melodramatic -- and, considering the movie's premise, it's tough not to -- Hardwicke keeps "Twilight" grounded in real, life-or-death emotions, no matter how far-fetched the conflicts become.

As a result, the movie's down-to-earth scenes seem far more compelling than its more supernaturally tinged ones, when Edward introduces Bella to his various vampire superpowers. (Or maybe it's because "Twilight's" budget limitations prevent the kind of splashy special-effects work we're used to seeing in big studio blockbusters.)

Fittingly, "Twilight's" performances keep the movie anchored in emotional reality -- even when the action heads into the realm of fantasy, prompting Edward's vampire family (led by Peter Facinelli and Elizabeth Reaser) to take action against a bloodthirsty rival ("Never Back Down's" gleefully predatory Cam Gigandet).

Pattinson broods with a gloomy intensity so intense it occasionally threatens to degenerate into campy melodrama. But Stewart ably balances vulnerability and determination, giving Bella an appealing directness that wins Edward's heart -- and ours.

Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.