The newest film in the Twilight series will make tons of money despite its mediocrity.
New Moon is the sequel that needs no introduction. We know that werewolves play a part because the media buzz overtaken by tweendom can’t get enough of a young actor with muscles, the returning Taylor Lautner (playing Jacob Black). We also know there are multiple sequels, so each movie will likely end on a romantically charged cliffhanger to get you in the seats next time. Unfortunately, New Moon is a paint-by-the-numbers movie in director Chris Weitz’s hands (The Golden Compass), lacking the aura of natural and supernatural beauty, romanticism, and danger that made Twilight a lot more fun with director Catherine Hardwicke (The Nativity Story).
Some critics think Weitz’s visual sense as a director is an improvement over Hardwicke’s. I don’t understand what this means, besides the fact that CGI werewolves are involved. They are impressive, but Hardwicke’s sense of image and music was more comfortable with human beings and their emotion.
The first hour drags considerably as Bella suffers mild depression based on the soul and age difference with her vampire beau Edward (hers 18 and getting older, his an eternally young 109). When they are together briefly in the beginning, they don’t seem to have any connection or enjoyment of each other’s company; Bella comes off as self-obsessed and ungrateful for everyone’s attempts to celebrate her birthday. (And she’s always finding ways to bleed in front of vampires.) This takes the impact out of Edward’s decision to leave Forks, WA, ostensibly because people are starting to ask questions about his family’s age.
Lack of Edward throws Bella into a self-destructive depression, and a new obsession with adrenaline and a younger, muscular family friend in Jacob Black. Jacob is in the middle of his own growing pains, and as a fan of classic horror and its connection to Romanticism, I found myself wanting more werewolf mythology.
Since the story is already thin, I hesitate to say more about the new love triangle for the sake of the rabid fans. But the werewolves are where the movie picks up, as Bella is caught in the uneasy truce between vampires and werewolves, pounded into the viewer’s minds as a Romeo and Juliet type of vendetta. Another “character” in the film, the three heads of the Volturi, the vampire popes headquartered in Italy, offer elements of final and absolute danger to the romance, and also demonstrate in two key instances the violent and inhuman core of the vampire world. However, these particular moments are so brief and so edited for PG-13 that they seem kind of funny instead. We want to spend a little more time in Bella’s struggle with both werewolves and the Volturi, as both “covens” feel tacked-on for exotic danger-quotient.
All this Twilight-mad romance makes Kristen Stewart the luckiest actress in Hollywood. Acting is not easy. I like actors, and I love good acting when it’s good. But I almost walked out because Stewart’s constant head shaking made me nauseous (it was a big screen, and actors have big heads). Combined with her glances down, repeated blinking, and her constant frowning, this “I’m a serious actor” head-shaking method starts to rub off on the young and impressionable Taylor Lautner. But his Jacob is supposed to be animal-souled, so maybe that works. Fortunately, the talented Robert Pattinson keeps his head still. I still believe he might be a vampire in real life, though.
It’s a shame that the franchise had to come out after the Harry Potter movies. Maybe if they were at the same time, the Twilights would be forced to be more distinctively realistic and therefore darker in content and theme (and we’re told, truer to the books). But as it turns out, the sequels, despite their paint-by-numbers approach (the official tagline is “The Next Chapter Begins.” Wow, really?), they could be the greatest cash-cows tweendom has ever seen.
