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Like angst and Muppety werewolves? Then you'll love New Moon!
New Moon is a good production for fans of the material. If you're not into the Twilight books, it's still the same source material, so there's not much they can do to help you there. It's better to look at than the Twilight film, though.
Picking up with Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson)'s tragic relationship, the film restates Bella's low self-esteem. She doesn't think she's worthy of Edward, so he constantly reassures her that he's the one who's lucky to be with her. But he just wants her to live a natural human life, so he thinks it's best if he leaves her. Jacob (Taylor Lautner) steps in to console her in her depression, but he's a werewolf. At least there's something strong to protect Bella when Victoria (Rachel Lefevre) comes after her.
The film as a whole looks better than Twilight because it's actually lit. As in, it looks like they actually set up lights this time for the movie. Twilight was dim and overcast, not in a stylish way, just in a way that looked like a poorly made film. So whatever else goes wrong, New Moon at least looks like a movie. Don't worry, Chris Weitz didn't change any of the overwrought melodrama. He just added a touch of cinematic flair, so the literal adaptation of the novel has some flourishes. Visuals like a painting come to life seem artful.
A lot of the visual effects look better this time around, too. The sparkling diamond skin is a little more subtle and feels more like part of the scene. Jacob's Parkour bouncing up the wall to Bella's window is much more impressive than Edward's tree-jumping in Twilight. The vampires move a lot more smoothly, and the visual of Victoria's red hair underwater is striking.
The new visual effects don't benefit from the trial and error of having a first film. The series' first try at werewolves looks like it belongs in the first film. The wolves look like fluffy Muppets. They're still blurry, as all Hollywood CGI work is, but at least their fights affect the environment. It's worth noting that they're crushing the forests while they fight, since they're really just painted in later.
Whatever improvements the filmmakers have made to the package, the contents are still the same. You either like teen angst or you don't. The story has a lot of buildup before cool stuff happens. Fans will read the subtext into the standard teen dating scenes, but the rest of us are kind of left waiting for the werewolves to come.
The teen socializing scenes have some of the film's most sincere moments, though. Jessica's (Anna Kendrick) riff on zombie movies is adorable. The fake movies that play at the cineplex are hilarious, if very silly, spoofs of action, horror and romance genres.
Plenty of it is still laughable. Edward's slow-motion brooding walk and Jacob's paraphrasing of the Incredible Hulk's line about getting angry don't resonate with casual viewers. And daintily running around a forest in slow motion is silly, right? But to a teenager who really feels that way, it probably means the world, so this movie is for them.
By netightman at 10:47 AM ON 11/20/09
It looks amazing!
By rodders at 11:32 AM ON 11/20/09
netightman, are you on crack or something? this looks utter rubbish. why it even got produced, i'll never know. twilight is an embarresment to vampires, werewolves and humans in general
By jb at 11:43 AM ON 11/20/09
Cant wait, a group of us have bought our tickets for this weekend. It certainly has to be better than the first one.
By ENOUGH!!! at 11:47 AM ON 11/20/09
We get it. A lot of people hate twilight on here but do you need to post a negative comment each time a twilight article gets posted on here. If you don't like the twilight films then don't watch them and don't read the articles about twilight.
By tekkblade at 12:02 PM ON 11/20/09
@ENOUGH welcome to the interwebs, the whole of comments is about reading articles that you hate so that you can post nasty things to p!ss off fans. I don't do it, but it's what happens, so SFTU yourself and get over it.
By TruthBeTold at 12:41 PM ON 11/20/09
The Twilight series is a vapid, self-centered universe about a girl who selfishly wants the world to revolve around her. The series SUCKED and I''m sure the movie conveys its SUCKdom. Why do you preeny meemy angst Twitards like this cr@p? I tried to read the first book and tossed it aside after the first three chapters. It's utter pap! And the movies are catering to you Twitards so they can suck your money to give you an hour and a half commercial on how to pose, brood and in general be as emo annoying as possible. Ugh. I'm glad the reviews are giving this a EPIC FAIL. because it always was and always will be.
By tati at 12:50 PM ON 11/20/09
My sister took today off from work so she could go see the first showing this morning. She didn't let her two girls take off from middle and high school to go, though LOL
By mochellie at 12:52 PM ON 11/20/09
People get way too wrapped up in their feelings about this series and its so out of hand!
I saw the movie already and I think critics are being WAY too hard on the film. I am a HUGE sci-fi and fantasy fan, so I read the books as well as watch the movies and if you've read the book, you can see that the movie perfectly fits the bill. Albeit, they did add some cheesy one liners that rub off as ridiculous, but it was placed in a way that made if obvious that it was set up to sound that way.
Honestly, when you set up the movie in correlation with the book its portraying, the movie is perfectly suited. People need to realize that before they go off judging it based on how it looks....
By MUADIB at 12:56 PM ON 11/20/09
iT'S CALLED SCI FI...EXCUSE ME ,SIFFY FOR A REASON.VAMPIRES ARE NOT SCI FI .tHE WORD "HORROR" IS NOT IN THE "WORD" SCIFI>NO MORE VAMPIRES!!!
By . at 1:58 PM ON 11/20/09
Take out the fangs and this is just days of our lives for tweens.
A turd by any other name...
By Jonas72 at 3:12 PM ON 11/20/09
At least it gets a lot of kids reading, even if it is this cr@p. We can only hope they in later years see how poor this is, and find some real literature.
By ENOUGH!!! at 3:30 PM ON 11/20/09
@tekkblade Did you mean to say STFU if so then you STFU.
By John Self at 7:37 PM ON 11/20/09
rodders,
No, idea why this movie was produced, huh? Here's a hint: "The Twilight Saga: New Moon set a new midnight opening record with $26.27 million from 3,514 theaters last night …"
By blackwolf at 3:42 PM ON 11/21/09
I just came from seeing the movie it was awesome i cant wait to see the third one oh by the way the wolves didnt look like muppets they very real so to those of you who dont like it STUFF IT
By namelessme at 5:31 PM ON 11/27/09
I'm on team 'get a life'!
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