"New Moon"

Today's Review: The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Genre: Drama / Fantasy / Teen Angst

Starring: Kristen Stewart
Taylor Lautner
Robert Pattinson

Director: Chris Weitz

For anyone not familiar with the Twilight story, it is a pretty simple (and pretty cliched now) premise about a love affair between a vampire (Edward) and a human (Bella). In this chapter, Bella reconnects with her childhood friend (Jacob) after Edward decides he has to leave town with his family and never see Bella again. The two main conflicts of the film are 1) A love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob and 2) Dealing with Victoria, the vampire who wants Bella dead after the Cullens (Edward's family) killed her boyfriend in the previous movie.

I'll say this right away, I think the Twilight series is far overrated by its fans, but far underrated by its critics. I'll just go right into the good vs bad.

The Good:

-The setting. I REALLY love the small town in the middle of the northwest US forest setting, and I think it was a perfect place to have all this occur.

-The special effects. Sure it was pretty obvious -when- there was CG, but it was still handled pretty well and not overdone.

-The characters. I definitely have some complaints about a few of them, but most are pretty intriguing. In particular I thought Alice, Jacob, and the Valteri were far more interesting than Edward and Bella. In turn, the acting is pretty decent also. Say what you want about Kristen Stewart, but she knows how to play the mopey teen quite convincingly.

The Bad:

-The cliche. Don't you miss when vampires used to be evil? Nowadays we have Twilight, True Blood, the Vampire Diaries, The Gates, countless novels cashing in on Twilight's success...the list goes on. I really miss the days of Buffy and Angel when there were only one or two good vampires in the WORLD.

-The vampire rules. Here are the "physics" for vampires in this world:
~They are almost invincible. Sunlight and staking won't kill them. They're too damned strong!! They have to be completely obliterated to be killed...like completely dismembered or burned to a cinder. This means it would probably be impossible for a human to kill a vampire in this world because they are also super strong and SUPER fast.
~In the sunlight, they don't die. Their skin simply shimmers. You probably already knew this because it is the only thing that the Twilight critics ever complain about.
~I'm fairly certain that simply being bitten by a vampire without being killed will turn a person into one...inconvenient
~ Many vampires have extra powers. Future visions, mind-reading, and other psychic things
~There is a truce between vampires and werewolves (though they arent really werewolves, they are shifters. werewolves need a full moon to change). The wolves protect humans and cannot harm vampires unless they break the truce.
Simply put, the vampires are too overpowered.

-The ANGST!! My god, after Edward leaves Bella, she mopes in her room for like four months! She is completely prepared to throw her life away for some guy she met a few months ago. Edward is even worse. He's been around for ~119 years but he is completely prepared to die just because this girl he met recently may or may not be dead. These crazy teens and their "all or nothing" attitudes... I literally had to facepalm when Edward told Bella "you are my only reason to go on living." Sure that sounds romantic to all the clueless 13 year old girls watching, but what the hell was his reason for living four months ago?


Like I said before, the fans need to shut up and the critics need to shut up. Overall I thought New Moon, like Twilight, was not "God's gift to movie watchers," but was still a decent film that I don't regret watching.

Final score - 7/10