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| The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) |
Oh, God, where to begin? Well, for one thing, this movie is boring. Holy crap, is it boring. The movie lasts two hours, though there's probably little over an hour of actual story here. And, oh boy, it's contrived as hell. Edward does the whole 'to keep you safe I must leave you' bulls*** and then we get over an hour of Bella sulking about it with occasional 'werewolf' business and then a conclusion that's practically ripped straight out of Romeo and Juliet. The movie's not even ashamed of it, one of the first shots in the movie is Bella waking up next to the Romeo and Juliet book. I believe that when I saw that, the first words out of my mouth were, "Oh, f*** you". What's worse is how pathetic Bella is here. She was already boring in the first movie, but now she's insultingly bad. A boy leaves her and her only solution is to throw herself off a cliff just to see his ghost...thing again. And that's interspersed with her going nuts over the hot wolf-boy which takes up about 45 minutes of screen-time and ultimately leads to nothing for her character, since she's in the exact same place at the end of the movie as she was when she began it. Nothing was learned. No lessons for the impressionable young women watching this movie apart from 'boys are everything and if you don't have one it's okay to be depressed and sit around doing nothing for months but check out that guy with the abs'. Seriously, one of the worst protagonists I've ever seen.
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| Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan |
Not that Kristen Stewart does her any favours. I will once again say in her defence that I know she is a good actor, and I know that she and Robert Pattinson are above this material, but Twilight was a huge franchise at the time, and regardless of how you feel about the source material, your performance in a franchise as big as this is going to hold big things for your career. What I'm trying to say is that I think I probably would have tried a little harder if I was in their shoes, at least to the point where the audience could understand what I was saying. Jesus, half the words out of Stewart's mouth are lost in a mumbled blur. At least Taylor Lautner seems to appreciate his role in this movie. He's... trying. I don't know, Lautner's doing a fine enough job in the role, but I guess I just hate the role. His character's doing the whole 'you're in love with this other guy but I'm here so be with me even though you've made your mind up and can make your own decisions' thing. Granted, those decisions are horrible, but he just comes across as a little controlling, and I really don't find him that compelling a character in that regard. His arc in this movie outside of Bella, though? Oh, my God, give me more of that! Becoming a werewolf then being compelled to follow the pack even though you don't want to? That's a movie in and of itself! Shame it isn't given... any focus at all.
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| Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen |
Also, I say 'werewolf', but the obvious observation is that they're not werewolves at all. They can turn into giant wolves at will; that's focused shapeshifting, not werewolf. But, I could look past that if there werewolves themselves were interesting, but they're just not. I couldn't tell you who the names of any of the wolf pack were, which is an even bigger shame since in the short time we see them, the majority of them are given unique personalities from each other. Well, unique enough, anyway. There's a plot-point introduced where the leader of the wolves accidentally got angry at his fiancee (I guess they're more like Hulk than werewolves...?) and slashed her across the face. That's a compelling story as well, but it's only given at most 3 lines in the entire film. This, to me, is what's the most frustrating about these movies: there are good stories buried in here. These could have been really interesting films. Sadly, the focus is Bella, and since she and her story aren't interesting in the slightest, it just drags everything else down with it. It's even interesting that she is somehow immune to the majority of the vampires' secondary abilities; I want to know why that is, and if that was the focus I'd be perfectly happy, but it isn't. The majority of the films are devoted to Bella's bulls*** love life that is typically exclusive of any of the interesting mythical stuff that's happening around her. It's so incredibly disappointing; there is a good movie in here somewhere, but it just can't get out.
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| Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black |
Although, I will say this: the entire sequence with the Volturi in Italy is brilliantly executed. The entire thing. It's got a good build-up, it's suspenseful, it's genuinely interesting to watch, the acting is solid across the board, it barely brings up the romantic angle at all, it ends on an honestly terrifying note, and it's a testament to how interesting these characters and stories are if they were allowed to get out. Michael Sheen is amazing as Aro, and I'm certainly looking forward to seeing more of him in these films. He's got this incredible presence, and it's so compelling to watch him work here. It's like he knows he's above this material, but he's the one that's going to save it. It's also interesting to see that there's more to the world of vampires outside of the Cullens, and the Volturi are very interesting as a concept. They have their rules and their customs, but they are willing to break them on the rare occasions that they so choose. It's hard to explain, and it certainly goes without saying that an amazing 5-minutes doesn't save a 2 hour+ movie, but it was an exhilarating feeling to get something out of these films. Just look up the scene on YouTube, you won't miss anything otherwise.
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| Michael Sheen as Aro |
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) is garbage, and is barely saved by a few redeeming elements. It's certainly a sad state of affairs when the villains are the only things I'm looking forward to in a romance series, but here we are. There's nothing else of value here. 1.5/10.
Tomorrow: Alien 3.
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