When I first read the book, I think it was 2 or 3 years ago, before all the hype happened. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book mainly because of the fact that no one knew about it. I kept reading and the second and third books didn't disappoint, but the fourth book seriously dampened my love of the series. The screaming girls are getting a little old, Stephenie Meyer's annoying me a bit, and with all the excitement and build up, I thought the movie was going to be somewhat of a let-down. And I know that I just sounded incredibly pessimistic there but that was to build up to my saying that I actually did enjoy the movie. Quite a lot.
It's been a while since I've reread Twilight so I wasn't really looking out for how closely in paralleled the book's plot, but from what I remember of it, it was pretty decent. I think they had some exact lines in there and some of the events were made to be identical to the book. That was probably quite a feat for the writer because if you think about it, Twilight is one of the cheesiest books out there. And I personally think that Bella is a relatively weak female character and in the movie they succeeded in giving her a touch of attitude and snark.
Character wise, I think the choices were good. My favorites were Billy Black, Charlie, Angela, and Rosalie. Kristen Stewart also did a nice job as Bella, sticking pretty close to her description in the book. I was a little disappointed with Robert Pattinson though. When he was first cast, I was in love with the decision because he's quite the cutie. Don't get me wrong, he did a nice job, but the only scene in which he radiated Edward-ness was when he was wearing his black sunglasses and making snarky comments about the students at the school. That was my favorite scene by far. I think he was a little overly broody for me. And the little fairy dust sound effect that accompanied his sparkling made me gag. He is hot though. Which makes up for it a little bit. :P
The special effects in general were a little bit cheesy...I wish they would've worked more on making the fast running actually look realistic. And the jumping/flying looked completely fake. The sparkly skin thing wasn't as ridiculous as I thought it was going to be which is amazing because I think a lot of us were wondering how in the world they were going to pull that off. And I actually kind of liked that part. Although you only get to see him partially shirtless. :( Disappointing eh?
Overall, I think the movie is pretty good. Definitely worth a watch. Lovers of the book will like it a lot and I'm excited to see what the sequels turn out to be like. I think they'll be good if this first movie is any indicator. :)