Sparkly Vampire VS Morphing Puppy

When you have to choose between a vampire and a wolf, what's a girl to do?

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Anna Kendrick, Taylor Lautner, Ashley Greene, Jamie Campbell Bower, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning, Jackson Rathbone, Rachelle Lefevre

directed by Chris Weitz

Just when you thought the whole Emo fad had passed…we have another Twilight Movie. The new installment is called New Moon, also the title of the book by Stephenie Meyer, and it’s fitting because as you’ve probably seen in the previews, werewolves are introduced. You can say what you want to say about the content of the books and films, but you cannot deny the popularity of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan to fans young and old. The box office numbers for New Moon broke the single day record that was previously held by The Dark Knight; so I think its fair to say tween girls and their mothers can be a powerful force in the movie industry when love, longing, and sparkly vampires are in the mix.

Its Bella’s (Stewart) birthday, and Edward (Pattinson) takes her to the Cullen home for a suprise birthday party set up by his sister Alice (Greene). Unfortunately, Bella gets a papercut on her finger from a birthday card, and Edward once again has to save her from a member of his family gone blood crazy. Edward takes it upon himself to break up with Bella and leave the town; he believes that without him around, she will be safer and not in constant danger. Bella doesn’t deal well with that at all. She falls into a deep depression. The only person who can pull her out of it is Jacob (Lautner) the slightly young member of a local Native American tribe. Bella finds herself split between her longing for Edward and her new interest in Jacob. But it turns out Jacob has a dark secret and demon all his own. Through a series of events, Edward mistakenly believes Bella to be dead and comes up with a plan to commit suicide at the hands of the vampire royalty; the Voltari. Bella must not only attempt to save Edward’s life, but choose between two monsters whom she has fallen in love with.

The acting is pretty much what you’d expect for the most part. Robert Pattinson plays the part of a conflicted and devastated 109 year old vampire. Jacob Lautner, on the other hand, is nothing more than a pretty face. Not one line that he spoke sounded close to believable; his whole performance as Jacob fell completely flat. I’m also fairly disappointed with Kristen Stewart. She can act much better; especially in the first installment of the franchise. Instead of giving Bella depth, as she did in Twilight, she reduced the role to a juvenile, depressing, screaming little girl. There’s a difference between true mourning and silly fake tragedy, and Stewart completely missed the mark. Plus, what girl takes the existence of vampire and werewolves so matter of factly? There is not an inch of shock or disbelieve anywhere in her performance.

For the most part, the directing was good. Chris Weitz has a good eye for camera placement; its evident in his previous film The Golden Compass and it is one of the better features of New Moon. Cool CGI werewolves, too; Kudos for that. I do have to say this though; the dream sequences were horrible. Almost over the top and sappy. To go from a film that looks so grey and dark to these sequences of frolics and light colors and skipping through the woods…its just ridiculous and I honestly laughed out loud in the theater numerous times. The situations weren’t meant to be funny, but that’s how they came across. The story was also a bit scattered, but I chalk that up to Epic; this film seems to be setting up a much larger story for the next two installments, and I believe in that aspect New Moon is extremely successful. However, if you know nothing about Twilight and have not seen the first film, you’re not going to know what the hell is going on.

And listen up, parents; the film has a positive look on good vs evil and plays with the fantasy aspect very well. But beware of what it has to say about how young girls deal with romance. Your heroine becomes a adrenaline junky and puts herself in situations where she could easily die. She also lays in bed and screams through the night from ‘withdrawals’ from missing Edward so much. The hero attempts suicide because of losing his girlfriend. Plus, the ‘other guy’ tries to eat anyone that pisses him off. Just let your little ones know that real life love (in most cases) is nothing at all like this. And shouldn’t be.

All in all, New Moon is a shallow and melodramatic teen romance; but it is what it is. Its written for younger people who will definitely connect with it better than most adults. This movie wasn’t made for action film guys, college frat boys, your dad, your mom, or your grandma. It was made for young girls and women who like idealistic romance stories. And in that aspect, it wins. It’ll win every time. As Iron Man is to guys, Twilight is to girls. Don’t knock it for being exactly what it is meant to be. Just, you know, avoid going to see it if its not your thing. New Moon ultimately failed to match the quality of its predecessor, but the film accomplished exactly what it set out to do. And dont’ forget; we still have two more to go…