The Twilight Saga: New Moon

 

PLOT:

On her 18th birthday, Bella Swan wakes up from a dream in which she sees herself as an old woman. She expresses her distaste with growing older than her boyfriend Edward Cullen, a vampire who stopped aging physically at 17. Despite her lack of enthusiasm, Edward’s adoptive family throws Bella a birthday party. While unwrapping a gift, Bella gets a paper cut, causing Edward’s brother, Jasper, to become overwhelmed by her blood’s scent and attempt to kill her. Realizing the danger that he and his family pose to Bella, Edward ends their relationship, and the Cullens leave Forks, Washington permanently.

Edward’s departure leaves Bella heartbroken and depressed for months. However, when her father, Charlie, decides to send her to live with her mother in Florida, Bella agrees to spend time with her friends. After seeing a movie with Jessica, Bella sees a group of men on motorcycles. This reminds her of when Edward previously rescued her from an assault, and she sees his image warning her to stay away. Bella discovers that thrill-seeking activities evoke Edward’s preserved image. She is also comforted by her deepening friendship with Jacob Black, a cheerful companion who eases her pain over losing Edward. When Jacob is unable to see Bella for weeks, she discovers that he is a werewolf, an age-old enemy of vampires. Jacob’s pack members, the Quileutes, are on constant patrol for Victoria, a vampire searching to kill Bella due to the death of her mate, leaving Jacob little time to spend with her. Alone again, Bella returns to seeking thrill-inducing activities.

Through a series of miscommunications, Edward believes Bella has killed herself. Distraught over her supposed suicide, Edward flees to Italy to provoke the Volturi, a powerful vampire coven capable of killing him, by exposing himself in the sunlight. Alice, Edward’s sister, and Bella rush to Italy to save Edward, and arrive just in time to stop him. However, the Volturi determine that Bella, a human who knows that vampires exist, must either be killed or transformed into a vampire herself. Alice stops them from killing her by sharing her premonition with Aro, a Volturi elder who is able to read thoughts, in which Bella has been transformed. Returning to Forks, Edward tells Bella that he always loved her and only left to protect her. She forgives him, and the Cullens vote in favor of Bella being transformed into a vampire, to Edward and Jacob’s dismay. Edward gives Bella a choice: either she lets Alice change her after their graduation, or, if Bella agrees to marry him, he will change her himself. However, Jacob reminds Edward of the treaty the Cullens made with the Quileutes: they will not attack each other, as long as the Cullens never bite a human.

REVIEW:

I just looked back and realized that it was exactly 1 year ago that I watched and reviewed Twilight, a film that I had no intention of actually enjoying, but somehow did. The Twilight Saga: New Moon, however isn’t os lucky.

Apart from being so overly dramatic and whiny, this film proves that Kristen Stewart can’t act. No wonder her non-Twilight film that was just released, The Messengers, bombed. Stewart spends thew whole time pining for Edward while trying to find comfort in the arms of Jacob. This is all well and good, as that is how it is in the book, from my understanding, but the emotion that she could be showing during these scenes is just not there, and she comes off as robotic.

Edward  isn’t really in this film much, but it is my understanding he isn’t in this book, either, so I can’t fault him for that. However, the scenes he is in, including the ones where he’s just a vision, are all as if he took some Ritalin before the cameras started rolling. Nothing wrong with being calm and all that, but if you’re telling someone who they shouldn’t go do something that could kill then, there should be a little more emphasis in your delivery. Acting aside, though, he doesn’t do half bad in the fight scenes in the Volturi throne room, or what have you. I think we all know they put that scene in there to attract some guys to the otherwise overly chicked-out chick flick.

This thing might as well have been called Taylor Lautner: The Movie. Not only is he the primary focus on the film (and book), but almost all advertising was centered around him and his newly buff bod. As with everyone else in this flick, he turns in a very robotic performance. I hate to judge him by these films, but I’m seriously starting to think that this kid can’t act and folks are just capitalizing on his shirtless scenes.

The Cullens have a drastically reduced part in the film, except for Alice, who actually has about the same. THe Queileute tribe I wonder about since they just walk around all day with no shirts on. Granted if I had abs like that, I’d want to show them off, too, but to walk around all the time with no shirt on? Seriously? I have two theories behind this. The first is that they do it to avoid having to get new shirts everytime they change to and from their wolf forms. The other is that this was for the women to drool over these guys.

With a bigger budget, I expected more from this thing. Comparing the two films, you would think Twilight had the bigger budget. The wolves looked slightly better than a SyFy channel movie and the glitter on the vampires doesn’t look as if they tweaked it at all.

Speaking of keeping things from the first film. All those flashbacks were a bit much. I like to say that flashbacks are a cheap way of filling time, and that’s exactly what these seemed to do. Now, some of them do serve a purpose in that they refresh the audience’s memory, but to keep showing these things the entire flick is a bit much.

  I don’t know, I guess I had a bit lofty expectations after the impressive surprise of Twilight, but this thing just didn’t impress me. What makes it worse is that the trailers do it an injustice in that they are better than the actual film. The Twilight Saga: New Moon comes off as an overly dramatic, overhyped, piece of teen drama that is only missing the head cheerleader dating the captain of the football team and a nerd crushing on one of them. This is just not a good picture. Sure, some out there will chastise me for ripping it a new one, but tis is my opinion, and I stick by it. Maybe next April when I watch the next installment of the franchise, it will be a much better film, but I’m not expecting so. I believe that Twilight will prove to be the best of the bunch.

2 1/2 out of 5 stars

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