The Twilight Saga: New Moon

The first film in the series was so bad it was good. I admit it, I was entertained. New Moon isn’t as bad, but while entertaining enough, isn’t particularly good either.

New Moon picks up where the first film left off: Bella Swan (Stewart) and the “vegetarian” vampire Edward Cullen (Pattinson) are still lovebirds. Bella’s birthday is being celebrated by the Cullen family, with the celebration organized by Alice, one of Edward’s “sisters.” Unfortunately, the party doesn’t go as planned - when Bella suffers from a small papercut, the sight/scent of her blood drives the bloodlust of Jasper (Jackson Rathbone, who will notably be playing Sokka in the upcoming The Last Airbender). Edward accidentally harms Bella when he pushes Jasper away (super-strength, and all that), and is guilty over it. What follows is two hours of teen drama interspersed with some supernatural fight scenes and a vampire “high council,” as Edward leaves Bella “for her own safety,” Bella goes into crazy/depressed mode, and Sharkboy, uh, I mean, Jacob Black (a beefed up Taylor Lautner) tries to prove his affections for Bella.

Before everything, let me just say that this film actually had a nice soundtrack. The mood (even though it was mostly “adolescent angst”) was decently captured in the music, and the action scenes were accompanied well. It also boasted of much better effects and better production value. The first film, Twilight, had special effects that were on par with, or even worse than TV’s Smallville. Thankfully, the studio at least invested a bit more and made the visuals a lot better, complete with contact lenses for the vampires. (My friend still claims that the werewolves looked more like oversized and cuddly Chow Chows than fierce wolves though.)

Although these are two bright points though, the main draws of the film - Edward and Bella - are a bit of a downer. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are still pretty wooden as the starring couple, and have little on-screen chemistry (or was that part of the book?).

Thankfully, the rest of the cast did better. Taylor Lautner as the werewolf Jacob boasted of a lot more personality. I actually think that he has more personality than Edward and Bella combined! Another saving grace is Ashley Greene, who creates a lovable and quirky Alice Cullen. Her role as Bella’s best friend sort of came as a surprise to me (I have no idea when they became that close), but she makes her screen time count.

The appearances of Michael Sheen, Jamie Campbell Bower (Anthony from the 2007 Sweeney Todd film) and Dakota Fanning as members of the Volturi also provided a strong supporting cast to the film. Dakota Fanning, of note, looked sufficiently scary, and made her few scenes count. I was also surprised by Cameron Bright’s appearance - I remember him playing the cute son of Aaron Eckhart in Thank You For Smoking, but now he’s all grown up as Alec, the twin brother of Dakota Fanning’s character Jane. I do hope to see more of them in the sequel, because I’d rather watch them (even though Michael Sheen’s character, the vampire Aro was kind of weird, in a bad way) than the painfully awkward Edward/Bella scenes.

Michael Sheen as Aro, Jamie Campbell Bower as Caius, and Cameron Bright as Alec in New Moon.

Dakota Fanning as Jane, a powerful member of the Volturi.

The inevitable sequel comes out next year, and I do hope that the makers will be able to make it a bit more coherent, and actually put some semblance of real romance in what is advertised as a romantic movie.

Annalee Newitz of io9 does a great job of breaking down the film:

“What’s amazing about New Moon, and the whole Twilight series generally, is how easily it becomes self-parody. I think that’s part of its appeal to teenagers, a group of people who cut through adult pretension and lies so incisively - and yet fall so hard for impossible fantasies. It caters to a youthful desire to watch a fairy tale, and then to see that fairy tale mocked mercilessly as the after-school-special bulls*** it is.

I suspect that audiences for New Moon will sometimes choose to see Edward as genuinely romantic, while others will laugh at his makeup. Still others will - like the movie itself - vacillate wildly between romantic yearning and scornful laughter.”

New Moon, despite its flaws, has still captured the imagination of throngs of fans worldwide, evidenced by one of the best opening weekends in US domestic box office history. It boasts of tons of comedy and lines so bad that I laughed out loud while watching (for example, the characters go watch a movie called “Face Punch” - doesn’t get any better than that as far as movie titles go), and enough pretty actors to keep you interested, but ultimately, it lacked the fun I had while watching (and laughing) at the first film, Twilight.

Watch it for the (unintentional?) comedy and the eye candy, but don’t get your hopes up if you’re looking for a masterpiece. Enjoy it for what it is, and you won’t be disappointed.