The Twilight Saga: New Moon Review

The Twilight Saga: New Moon Review

Werewolves, Vampires, romance and feuding, on the outside New Moon seems like quite a promising film. However, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years than you’ll know that these are highly misleading elements. If you have been living under a rock for the last few years then don’t be fooled by the trailers. If you’re looking for another Underworld style movie with guns, girls, vampires and werewolves you’re going to be disappointed. Instead you’ll end up with broody teenagers, pubescent boys and a strange craving for older men, and / or, younger women.

As far as vampire films go, this is highly disappointing. There’s little to no blood and not a pointy tooth in sight. When Stephanie Myers was growing up she must have had a hatred for vampires and werewolves. They must have stolen her favorite teddy bear or something extreme to make her want to completely destroy Vampire and Werewolf mythology .Vampires that sparkle in sunlight? No thanks, I’d rather they burst into flames.

I can hear the 12 year old fan girls screaming at me, “Twilights a romance story who cares about anything else?” How about every guy that gets dragged along to watch it? Even if it is a romance, it fails on that premise. How are we, as the audience, supposed to align ourselves with the protagonist Bella? She jumps from a vampire who’s over 100 years old to a werewolf who is 2 years younger than herself. Does that not seem strange to anyone else? Regardless of the age gap, Bella seems to chop and change who she likes and who she doesn’t as often as I eat hot meals. One minute she’s with Edward, then the next he’s gone and she’s leading on Jacob. Then Edwards in trouble and she leaves Jacob and is back to Team Edward. She’s broody and highly irritating. Was I the only one cheering for the Volturi, the only real vampires in the story might I add, to do us a favor  Bella dies, Twilight ends, the world rejoices. But no, we’re forced through 2 hours of New Moon and probably another 2 films.

The acting is quite simply atrocious. Kirsten Stewart is broody and boring. Compared to her other achievements in Panic Room and The Messengers, Twilight is like a giant lead anchor that will hold her down for the rest of her life. Whenever she goes for an audition she’ll be known as that girl who was in Twilight, which is a shame really, she’s actually not a bad actress.

Robert Pattinson is another who drags the film down, although his past performances are nothing to be proud of. His terrible acting as the burly, depressive Edward is highly disappointing, but, as far as his acting career goes, that’s about par.

This films only saving grace is the cinematography. The setting is a fantastically beautiful back drop for a love story. The woods, the high school, the Cullen house, they’re all stunning. It’s crisp, colourful, highly detailed and carries this film above being a completely flop.

The scripting is another thing that lets the film down. It may be fine for all of the Twi-hard fans out there but what about the rest of us who get dragged along by our Twi-hard girlfriends? Huge chunks of context and character information seem to be missing. I found myself constantly asking questions throughout and afterwards about what special abilities different vampires had and who they were.

Twilight is a Hollywood budget movie, trying to be an independent film. Although it looks spectacular, that’s as far as the indie feel goes. It’s $50 million budget seems somewhat wasted until you realise that it’s worldwide opening weekend pulled in over $255 million.

As far as the Twilight Saga goes so far, New Moon beats the original, but as far as claims to success go, that’s like Stephanie Myers claiming she’s better at writing novels than a new born baby. For all you unwilling guys out there who get dragged along, make the most of it. At least get some free popcorn or refuse to pay for the tickets or something.