If someone asked you to tell a vampire story, one can only hope this would not be the story that first pops into your head. If someone were to ask you to tell a love story, and you tell the story of Bella (Kristen Stewart), Jacob (Taylor Lautner), and Edward (Robert Pattinson), their strange far-too-mature-for-their-age love triangle, and the mystical beings that are also involved, then sure. It might be an acceptable one, but certainly not that great a choice.
The best way to summarize New Moon is just that, “not that great”. It has incredible amounts of potential in that it has many story plots that were either overlooked by [New Moon author Stephanie] Mayer or dismissed by the screenplay adapter Melissa Rosenberg. Sitting through the film and wondering why certain elements were not explored will be fruitless however, for the purpose of the story is to enhance the image of a certain sex to the point that their physical potential outweighs any kind of romantic behavior. Either that, or to convince an entire generation that true love is eternal, but that certainly is not an explored message, just proactively used to beat the audience over the head with every few scenes.
After only a short montage of what you can assume to be a few short weeks (being the film does not take any obligation to tell you how much time passes), Bella quickly falls into some kind of infatuation with Jacob. It cannot be definitively called love for many reasons. The first is that the script sucks so hard that the dialogue is built completely on stating either the blatantly obvious or the drastically, vaguely, poetic, and neither Jacob nor Luna have the human verbal skills to enunciate their emotions in a way that does not piss the other off. The second is that she quite obviously only has love for Edward Cullen, a vampire (again, this love is blatantly pointed out, in an obvious fashion, at least three times by the movies end).
Shirtless men bring numbers into box offices is understandably the lesson learned by this film. If you want to get droves of people into your movie, have Taylor Lautner lose his shirt every few scenes. Many argue that it is the appeal of the vampire, but to be quite honest, with the exception of them blatantly stating everyone is a vampire repeatedly in the movie, there would be no way of knowing. They sparkle in the sunlight, rather than burn in it and the real kicker is that they draw blood from the wrist rather than the neck, or so you would assume being there is no wrap-up of the first film. This simply means any newcomers are left bare to the story with no clue as to what is going on, and with zero introduction to the characters aside from Kristen Stewart’s diatribe of a monologue in the opening.
Some would applaud Mayers for thinking so “uniquely” and “out-of-the-box”, creating or fashioning a world that does not meet the conventions of vampirism or werwolvism (is that an ism?); however, it feels more like a lacking of knowledge in the occult and a distinct attraction to the idea of the sex-appeal that a vampire offers. After all, what is more lusty than biting the bare, warm, neck of a lover and drawing her life from her to replenish your own? Too bad no one actually does that in this movie though. Instead they touch, tank-top to bare-manly-chest, and kiss (maybe).
The whole movie is a build up of a single event that never even occurs, a fight between Jacob and Edward. To make matters worse they introduce pointless characters who either have no prior relevance or certainly have none later in the future.
Interesting twist (probably stolen from Interviews With A Vampire), is the different assortment of abilities vampires can have. For instance, there is Edward’s sister, Alice Cullen (very pretty Ashley Green) who has the ability to reveal plot in the next scene so that the story can actually move along (a.k.a. she has visions of the future and can predict, but not very accurately, the events to come, spoiling a lot of good drama).
There is no symbolism, there is no hidden messages. The film is called New Moon and majority of the action sequences, in fact majority of the dialogue, take place in the middle of the day. The movie has very little pre-determined direction other than the end of a quadrology that should highlight the surface-level themes of Romeo & Juliet. A tragedy, without the tragic element is essentially what this Twilight series is shaping up to be.
The fight sequences (well, the two fight sequences) in the film are drastically different. One is reminiscent of Peter Jackson’s CGI’d fight scene of King Kong versus… well everything. However, there is not near as much coordination or dedication involved with the wolf fight. The next fight is wonderfully done, displaying both the speed and grace of vampires as they slide and swing, moving in blurs of pale light. Brilliant. It was a real shame the rest of the movie could not be like that.
I do not know if these creatures of the night are what is to be replacing the ideals we have had before, but it would be a real shame to lose the haunting Béla Lugosi image as Dracula or the terrifying depiction of a werewolf transformation John Landis gave us in An American Werewolf In London. However; if this is where our appeal of the occult and monsters is heading, I can only hope Joe Johnston’s Wolfman remake can pull us from this hole. Here’s looking forward to February 2010.
Guest Author Bio: Ty Duggan is an avid reader and a film enthusiast. Born in Rhode Island, Ty enjoys playing drums, listening to music and having detailed conversations on politics, faith and relevance of film in our modern culture.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I will probably see the movie, but after reading your interesting review, my inclination is to find an old copy of Bela Lugosi’s “Dracula” and watch that instead.
I guess the film and the book intentionally present the image of the vampire and werewolf in a different light to appeal to the younger audience (vampires never sparkle, werewolves have soul mates?!). Sure those images are not the ones we were used to, but that’s how the author wanted it to be. We can only hate or love those changes. Obviously in this case, you hated it. But that’s fine… we have different opinion about everything (Not a Twilight fan, btw :D)