Twilight Saga: New Moon

Will the next cinematic instalment in the Twilight franchise, New Moon prove itself to be as successful as its predecessor? Angela Burton slips her plastic fangs in, has the wolf mask on standby and prepares to find out more about the film that gives ‘Jedwood’ a whole new meaning.

If you haven’t read any of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga books, you won’t know that they all begin with a preface. Each novel takes a moment from the climatic scene and places it at the start, just to let you know what’s in store if you can make it to the end of each chunky volume. One positive thing I can say for this movie as an adaptation is that it’s true to the novel. There’s no added weirdness – just the expected alterations and omissions, which is acceptable for a 563 page volume – but the preface is reproduced as an opening scene, perhaps to remind everyone that there is action beyond the moping ahead.

If Kristen Stewert’s Bella and Robert Pattinson’s Edward getting together made you sick to your stomach, New Moon will make you giddy with joy. With only a few (awkward) minutes to play vampire and victim before the vamp gets bored and walks out on his human, the remainder of the film sees Bella brooding over her lost love and fretting when she gets too much attention from the other guys, and werewolves.

Having read the books I was unsurprised when the Quileute tribe started bursting into giant wolves, but if you haven’t read it, do you even know who the Quileutes are? Have you watched Twilight recently? Do you remember Taylor Lautner’s Jacob Black? If so, do you know why he and Bella are so friendly? Tut tut, I thought not. But that’s not your fault. Director Chris Weitz maybe put a little too much faith in the fanbase doing their homework and reading the story, so he didn’t have to bother telling it himself. As a result, too much knowledge is presumed, so make sure you’ve got a grasp of the basic plot points before you watch it.

New Moon has added some out-of-place comedy, mainly from Bella’s dad, Charlie (Billy Burke). His cheesy one-liners take the edge off the dramatic moments. He asks his 18-year-old daughter if she has a grey hair after her disturbing dream in which she appears as old as her grandmother. Then, after another of Bella’s nightmares that cause her to wake up screaming (not very convincingly frightened and more frustrated), he cheers her up by telling her he’s a “famous ladies’ man”, (again if you’ve read the books you’ll know he’s not. Ha ha…).

For those who loved Twilight, read New Moon and feared that the movie would be Edward-less, a sigh of relief was in order when the novel’s depiction of the absent Edward as a voice in Bella’s head turned into a smoky, ghostly apparition of him instead. With Weitz’s The Golden Compass’ CGI still haunting me I was a bit worried about how this would turn out, but surprisingly, it looked good. Still on the subject of CGI, I still have a slight issue with the wolves. Although the interaction with the surroundings was pretty cool, the wolves themselves were just, well, cute. Even when they were snarling and fighting I still wanted to take one home with me and scratch it behind the ears.

Twilight was all about human and vampire love. New Moon turns away from that, when Edward makes an early escape. This leaves Bella free to get started on the third side of the love triangle, the obviously besotted Jacob Black, werewolf. The de-vamped middle section of the film is actually the best part, even if it is a werewolf replay of Twilight and the start of New Moon on fast-forward.

Bella refuses to admit that Jacob is her boyfriend, so keen is she to maintain her first love and use her wolfy mechanic to gain another vision of Edward, (the cold-hearted bi – hmph). That is until Jacob tries to walk out on her. She hadn’t even gotten over her earlier romance and now the second one is already leaving her? When coupled with the fact that both her wannabe loves are somewhat supernatural, it’s no wonder the girl is falling apart; she can’t even keep a monster for a boyfriend.

Two breakups not being sufficient, a breakdown is in order. After Bella saves her beloved Edward from revealing himself and provoking the Volturi into killing him, who should swoop down on them but the Volturi themselves. The threat of the vampire law enforcers looms throughout the novel; they get their first mention 19 pages in, with a reminder of a picture described in the first book, (also not included in the film). Onscreen they look cool, but lack the dominance and power they’re meant to have. When I saw promotional pictures of 15-year-old Dakota Fanning as malicious and frightening Jane, I quivered in my boots. On screen, it was difficult to tell if she lacked menace or the other characters’ reactions were unconvincing. In terms of new additions to the Twilight world: Werewolves 1, Volturi 0. Sigh.

Rating on a scale of 5 cute kitties: 3.5

Release date: November 20 2009
Directed by: Chris Weitz
Written by: Stepenie Meyer (book), Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay)
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Peter Facinelli, Michael Sheen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Christopher Heyerdahl, Dakota Fanning
Rating: 12A
Running time: 131 minutes