Girls (and the occasional guy) swarmed Regal Theater last night practically frothing at the mouth at the thought of their favorite fictional love interests: Edward Cullen and Jacob Black. One fan even brought in a life-size cardboard cutout of Edward, provoking shrieks from the crowd.
(Bit of pre-warning, this review will contain spoilers. But honestly, there’s not much to spoil.)
The plot is pretty basic: Bella is getting old, Edward worries about Bella, Edward leaves Bella, Bella goes emo (something she picked up from Eddy, perhaps?), Jake is hot, Jake thinks Bella’s hot, Jake hearts Bella, Bella is a bitch. THE END! Oh, and somewhere in there Edward returns, but who cares? Have your SEEN Jacob?
If this movie did anything it showed that the true problem behind the first film installment of the Twilight series was its director Catherine Hardwicke (and also perhaps Stephenie Meyer’s sad writing ability, but that a whole other post). The first film was painful to watch with its lame (blue?) visuals, horrible camera work and just weird directing choices. New Moon was visually stunning and was much more pleasant to the eye. And it wasn’t blue, so I guess someone over at Summit finally learned about white-balance.
Kristen Stewert was about as emotionless and boring as ever. How is it possible to say every line in the same monotone voice? During Edward’s goodbye scene in the woods she seemed like she was having a bad case of constipation, not an emotional breakdown.
Rob Patz wasn’t in the movie much. Edward’s character in the film really needed to lighten up during some scenes though. He’s constantly brooding or in really deep thought. It’s not mysterious, it’s annoying. Even lines where he was supposed to be semi-funny fell flat on most of the audience.
I honestly didn’t notice Taylor Lautner’s acting skills. His, uhm… presence was too distracting.
The audience would ooh and ahh whenever Lautner didn’t have his shirt on (which was basically 90 percent of the movie, but who’s complaining?), and there was literally a collective audience moan the first time he took it off. Sometimes it was completely unnecessary, such as when he decided to do a bit of a strip tease after Bella cuts her head open. But who knows, maybe his neck muscles have magical healing abilities.
On a side note, nobody made a peep when Edward/Rob Patz took his shirt off to reveal his painted on chest.
Anna Kendrick as Jessica was hysterical, as were the rest of the high school kids. Billy Burke played the role of a concerned parent well. The scenes where Bella is screaming in her sleep were especially harrowing to think of from his perspective. Ashley Greene as Alice was also fantastic for the few scenes she was in. She wasn’t as weird as she was in Twilight at least. The film actually discusses the other vampires abilities (or atleast Jasper’s), something they completely left out of the last movie. Dakota Fanning was stunning, but it was a bit hard to think of her as Jane instead of Fanning-playing-Jane.
I definitely had issues with the overall message of the movie. I literally felt sick to my stomach during scenes where Bella and Edward were together at the end. It just felt wrong. She was like a drug addict who was finally getting her fix. It was disturbing to watch her walk away from Jacob. In one particular scene Jake pleads with Bella to stop looking for Edward, to think about her father and him. But she ignores this; she is willing to hurt everyone she loves for Edward. I can’t imagine the implications this is having on young girls who look at Edward and Bella as the perfect couple.
Don’t go into New Moon expecting a thought-provoking plot line, fantastic dialogue or great acting. It’s a romance movie that plays out like a cheesy truck-stop romance novel (because honestly, the Twilight series is just an over-hyped version of that), and people who like that sort of thing will love this.
So how did it compare to the book was it as off kilter as Twilight or did this installment stay truer to its source?
I try not to review based on the book as I don’t count myself as a fan, a fansite would probably have that kind of review available though.