The Twilight Saga: New Moon

MOVIE DETAILS

Rating: 4.8 out of 10
Director: Chris Weitz
Writer: Melissa Rosenberg, Stephenie Meyer
Star: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
Genres: Adventure/Drama/Fantasy/Romance
Release Date: November 20, 2009 (United States)

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

The police should have put this film behind bars for intending to complain about everything. Never in the history of teenagers has there been such a great need for a jump start and, yes, some of them are over 100 years old, but still: their charisma is waxwork.

“The Twilight Saga: New Moon” takes “Twilight”(2008), a lackluster achievement at best, guts it and leaves it undead. You know you’re in trouble with a sequel when the word of mouth is to see the first movie twice instead. Obviously the characters all have. Long opening stretches of this film make absolutely no sense unless you walk in knowing the first film, and hopefully both Stephanie Meyer novels, by heart. Edward and Bella spend dim moments glaring at each other thinking so here we are again.

Bella (Kristen Stewart) is still living at home with her dad (Billy Burke), a cop whose disciplinary policy consists of grounding her for life and then leaving her alone so she can jump off cliffs, haunt threatening forests and fly to Italy so the movie can evoke the sad final death scene from let me think oh yeah, Romeo and Juliet! The same play Edward was reciting narcissistically and contemptuously during an opening scene.

Yes, Edward (Robert Pattinson) is back in school repeating 12th grade for the 84th time. Bella sees him in the school parking lot walking toward her in slow motion wearing one of those Edwardian Beatles jackets with a velvet collar, pregnant with his beauty. How white his skin; how red his lips. The ravages of middle age may turn him into the Joker.

Edward and other members of his Cullen vampire clan mostly stand around glowering. Long pauses interrupt longer ones. Listen up lads! You may be immortal but we’ve got a train to catch!

Edward leaves because Bella was not meant to be with him. Although he’s a vegetarian vampire, when she gets a paper cut at her birthday party one of his pals leaps on her like a shark on a tuna.

In his absence she befriends Jacob (Taylor Lautner), that nice American Indian boy. “You’ve gotten all buff!” she tells him. Yeah, really buff, and pretty soon he’s never wearing a shirt and standing outside in the winter rain as if he were oh yeah just a wild animal. They don’t need coats like ours, remember, because God gave them theirs.

Those not among the 5% of this movie’s target audience who don’t already know this will (spoiler) be surprised that Jakey-wakey is a werewolf.

Bella: So you’re like a werewolf?

Jacob: Last time I checked.

Bella: Can’t you find a way to just stop?

Jacob (patiently): It’s not a lifestyle choice Bella.

Jacob is affected or controlled or something by Sam another member of the tribe. He’s like the alpha wolf. Sam and his three friends are mostly seen in long shot, shirtless in the rain hanging around the edges of the clearing as if hoping to dash in and pick off some fresh meat

Bella writes lengthy letters to her missing vampire friend Ashley Greene (Alice), wherein she gives no indication of why she finds these wicked, joyless, narcissistic men so irresistible. It can’t be the sex. As I mentioned in my review of the first film, The Twilight Saga is an allegory for teenage abstinence, where the penalty for having one’s cherry popped is left to your imagination.

The movie contains lovely fields full of potted flowers apparently planted hours earlier by the set dresser and nobody not keyed into the plot which is everyone within a mile of this theater knows what they’re doing there. They know everything and we know everything and we sit there knowing that they’re sitting there waiting for us to catch up with them although we know as much as they do about what’s going on. So it’s like driving a tractor in low gear through a swampy sea of Brylcreem.

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