Robert Pattinson finds himself facing the same mountain that Daniel Radcliffe has begun to successfully scale: living down the pop-culture mantle cast upon him. Unlike Radcliffe however, Pattinson has wisely chosen to start the process with all due haste so as not to be forever known as “that Twilight vampire guy”. However, before Twilight was even a twinkle on his horizon, he made The Haunted Airman, a made-for-television movie first aired in the UK in 2006 and canned until this 2009 release when the American audience will get another taste of pre-Twilight Pattinson. Unfortunately, there's a strong parallel between the two roles. It may help show that he can do more than brood and talk wistfully about a romance he can't let himself have (although there is an element of that here as well) but there's still one distracting drawback: he still looks like a vampire. So much so that it outshines an unfortunately dim narrative which never fully establishes itself because of its stunted 70 minute run-time. You can see the plans for a good feature-length story, but the whole thing just peters out instead of climbing to the fully deserved dramatic climax. What a shame. Consequently it does little to help convince non-Pattinson fans of his range (which does exist). Click here for the full review.
