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New Moon: A Male’s Encounter With Glittery Man-Things
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Written by Henry Mouat
Grade: C-
After only a short but agonizing year of waiting, teen girls around the world can scream in a collective hormone rush: New Moon has arrived! The cultural phenomenon continues the immortal romance started by Twilight, in which both vampires and werewolves exist and humanity is far too stupid to notice any of it (not even the vampires with blood red eyes—hello?). So the question remains: is this immortal romance and teen angst flick worth a dime? The answer is, as everyone knows, that only those who have been brainwashed by Stephanie Meyers’ books will feel the love. For the rest of us, the experience is like trying to watch a film in 3D without the special glasses: the magic simply isn’t there. I can appreciate that the books are the ultimate wish fulfillment for adolescent teen girls who want sweet, intelligent, sexy, bloodthirsty guys to devote their lives to them. My biggest concern is this: how do these characters fulfill this wish? Between the suffocating amount of teen angst and the vampire-werewolf fighting (which looks like the wolves of Narnia fighting the X-men—in other words, jarringly bizarre), the audience is meant to be thrilled with a teen romance as compelling as Titanic. Too bad this ship had sunk before it even left the harbor.
The story begins with Bella, the pretty girl with whom every guy wants some action, awakening to her 18th birthday—which for her is an issue, because she might get too old for her vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen. Their relationship is tense, as there’s always the risk of going to dinner with his family and being eaten, but Bella is happy (which is a purely hypothetical observation, as she never looks happy at any point in the film). Unexpectedly, however, Edward approaches Bella one day and—Shazam!–does a complete 180 on his ‘eternal love’ standpoint. Bella is devastated, until she begins spending time with a childhood friend, Jacob, who happens to be the perfect friend and look like Conan the Barbarian all at once. Things get complicated when it turns out that Jacob is a werewolf; worse yet is that Bella feels something for both him and Edward, who are mortal enemies (naturally). The main meat of the film is Bella’s suffering as she tries to forget Edward and start a new ‘immortal’ romance (which should be impossible if you go by the definition of ‘immortal romance’, but in a film that displays both vampires and werewolves, anything is possible). This somewhat abnormal love triangle believes that it is as powerful as Romeo and Juliet, but the sad truth is that none of these characters display anything as heart-throbbing as they would have you believe if you haven’t read the book.
First is Edward Cullen, the sophisticated, sensitive, edgily handsome dude whose sole purpose for living eternally is for his true love. It is beyond me what kind of black magic Stephanie Meyers used to make this guy such a heartthrob, as he is so weird that even Robert Pattison, the actor who portrays Edward, is creeped out by him (no joke). Edward goes a bit beyond the protective boyfriend role; he watches Bella while she sleeps, he sneaks into her room to look through her diaries and photo albums, he’s by her side ALL the time (Plus, he’s 109 years old and Bella’s 18—does that not scream pedophile?). In an early scene, when Bella pricks her finger and invokes the bloodlust of another vampire, Edward demonstrates his ‘protective’ nature by throwing Bella back into a wall to get her out of harm’s way, thereby cutting open her arm at the shoulder and getting blood everywhere. Um, mission accomplished? Pattison does as good a job as he can do with such a character, but in truth, he knows that he really doesn’t understand the character and that his only concern should be to look tormented in as sexy a way as possible. There’s never much explanation as to why he’s so tormented, but it might have something to do with the fact that he’s chosen to spend his immortality in high school. It doesn’t matter how many chicks you could score over the eons, re-reading Shakespeare every year would get to your head. Edward Cullen is the vampire equivalent to a Twinkie; he might look good, even after prolonged years with no exposure to sunlight, but underneath it all he’s deeply unhealthy for you.
Then there’s Jacob, the ultimate BFF for people who want “friends with benefits”. He’s that sweet, funny guy who wants you to like him so much that he lets you take advantage of him, and loves it—which is exactly what Bella does, like it or not. She gets him to hang out with her and fix motorcycles in Edward’s absence, but you never really feel like she is ever going to return his love. Jacob’s character, however, is going through that ‘delicate phase’ of male maturity, the part where you just gotta BREAK something, because you’re so angry at the world. Jacob, as played by Taylor Lautner, is largely similar to Anakin Skywalker from Attack of the Clones; he has frequent conniptions and tantrums (“It’s NOT FAIR!” or “How could you understand?!! You can’t!! You never will!!”), which really don’t add anything to the story besides excessive angst. But soon Jacob’s situation gets really hairy when he becomes a werewolf. At this point, he is entitled to get a crew cut (an ancient, respected tradition among his tribe) and walk around without his shirt. Give Lautner a few more years in the gym, and he’ll have a shot at running for Governor of California—or maybe earning a role in 300-2. Lautner really doesn’t have any acting talent to carry his character any further, but luckily for him, the dialogue is generally so hokey and stilted that none of the other performances fare any better.
Yet even in the ridiculous company of a tormented vampire and a moody werewolf, the most ridiculous and least likeable of these characters is Bella. This quickly becomes a problem, as she is the main character and the center of all the hormones and romantic interest roiling throughout the film. Bella has all the emotion and expression of a drug addict; she is unresponsive to what people say to her, she generally speaks in a depressed or uninterested tone, and she even has hallucinations of Edward after the breakup. Bella is meant to be the girl who every guy wants to date and every teen reader wants to be, yet in Kristen Stewart’s hands, it’s hard to believe that anyone would want to do either. Stewart has proven herself capable of acting in films such as Adventureland or In the Land of Women, yet she doesn’t come out any better than Lautner in this film. The most potent emotion I could sense from Stewart was that she herself was NOT a Twilight fan, and therefore was not entirely willing to commit to the film. It almost makes you wish that someone in the film had just decided to take her character out completely, and had left Edward and Jacob to fall in love with each other.
The film also boasts a few action sequences (with noticeably better effects) and a creepy performance by Dakota Fanning, but both of these also fall flat, given that every fight ends by talking it out and that the Count from Sesame Street is more intimidating than Fanning. The sad fact is that the film loves itself more than Edward loves Bella, and that only teens who have already fallen hopelessly in love with the source material will say the film deserves such excessive devotion. Without first reading the books, you really won’t care whether or not Edward and Bella have a happy ending. If you find yourself in need of vampires and romance, you should wait for the New Moon DVD release while you read the books. Otherwise, turn on the TV and watch True Blood.
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Photo credit Leah Worthington
WEEKLY CAPTION CONTEST:
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
TRUE BLOOD FTW
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November 23rd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
“But soon Jacob’s situation gets really hairy when he becomes a werewolf”. Nice pun.
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November 25th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
This is quite possibly the most hilarious movie review I’ve ever read.
Props to Henry for capturing the utter insanity that is Twilight
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