“Main Street” dipped into emergency stashes this weekend to catch the world’s favorite vegetarian vampire. Twilight, based on the bestseller by Stephanie Meyer, sucked in about $7 million on Thursday evening.  After opening day, it was estimated to have made over $30 million. Summit Entertainment has already announced a sequel, which makes it possible for them to translate all four novels to film.

Warner Brothers has yet to top the opening day figures and overall gross total for the first Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, with the subsequent four films. And it’s doubtful that Twilight won’t do the same.

Though fans shouted and cheered as each of their favorite characters appeared on the big screen, clapped when the credits came on, and gossiped endlessly until they may have gone back for a second viewing, the movie as a whole wasn’t quite as satisfying.

Like most novels made into movies, Twilight doesn’t truly capture Meyer’s beautiful story of love and self-control. In the movie, it seemed odd that so many moments were portrayed as humorous. When Edward Cullen, the vampire, is first introduced in the film, he appears to be possessed. In the novel, he is simply restraining himself from the beautiful scent of Bella Swan.

In the following scenes, Edward seems socially awkward, but in the novel he is an eloquent and charming conversationalist. Meyer makes his character seem impossibly hard to resist; he is the perfect man (if he was human, that is). The movie simply falls short in this depiction.

Science fiction novels allow the reader to be absorbed into a world that they wouldn’t imagine without an author’s imaginative words. Vampires, who glisten like diamonds in the sunlight, move at inhuman speeds and can leap from trees, can kill with their monstrous strength – this type of character becomes fully realized in our minds. We disregard whether these traits make sense.

But the movie doesn’t allow its audience to believe these superhuman qualities. Leaping and speeding through the forests is poorly portrayed. The vampire’s pale skin is more ghostly than attractive. And, most importantly, where are their fangs?

Aside from the graphic quality of the film, each character is played impeccably well. Robert Pattinson captures the torment and angst of Edward Cullen and Kristin Stewart brings vulnerability and passion to Meyer’s Bella Swan.

The audience oohs and ahhs as the two embrace in their first love scene, a close encounter in which Cullen says one of Meyer’s most famous quotes, “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb.” Swan responds, “What a stupid lamb,” followed by Cullen’s, “What a masochistic lion.” There’s honest chemistry.

But for a novel that was first written for young adults (though it’s taken over the interest of all age groups), the movie comes across a bit racy with Cullen and Swan breathing hard and loud in nearly every scene, clearly stimulated by just the presence of one another.