As promised, here is a very special guest review by the Leader's own Aimee Niles. She and sports editor Heidi Hanse went to the midnight showing the night it came out in Polson, so she got the movie and the atmosphere. Take it away, Aimee:
No matter what I write, it will not change anyone’s mind about the newest flick in the Twilight Saga. Those who love will continue to love and those who loathe will continue to loathe.
Such is the nature of the blockbuster beast.
“New Moon” starts off the fall after ‘Twilight” leaves off (for those with poor memories, the closing scene of “Twilight” featured the protagonists swaying slowly at prom). Our female heroine, Bella Swan (played woodenly by Kristin Stewart), is turning 18 and her ageless, vampire heartthrob—Edward Cullen (played in a “dear God please go away!” manner by Brit Robert Pattinson)—is stuck as his 17-year-old self.
After a whoopsie-daisy moment at her birthday bash, Edward decides vampires—even the non-human hunting Cullens—are too dangerous for Bella. Taking the “it’s not you, it’s me” breakup line to the next level, he leaves Bella in rainy Forks, Wash. as he and his “vegetarian” vampire family move on to the chapter in their immortal lives.
Which brings us to the next two hours of the movie. None of us in the audience were fooled for a second when Bella started “hanging out” with the ultra-hottie Jacob Black (played by the 17-year-old Tayler Lautner, so back-off cougar moms. Let your daughters have this one). We all know that this is just a painful interlude to the Bella/ Edward love story; one doesn’t even need to have read the books to get this.
So, for two hours, Bella mopes and cries for her dearly departed vampire love all the while leading Jacob on in the cruelest of manners. (I don’t care if you’re Jesus Christ in his teenage years; no boy handles a teasing girl as well as Jacob. Yet another false expectation Stephanie Meyers is parlaying to an entire generation of teenage girls.)
After a series of madcap antics, (oh no! Bella rides a motorcycle…) Edward thinks Bella is dead and goes to Italy to end his immortal life. Bella follows and I won’t ruin the ending for you.
Perhaps I’m not observant enough to recognize the nuances of Stewart’s performances, but the “happy” Bella in “Twilight” as compared to the deeply depressed Bella in “New Moon” is pretty much the same performance. Stewart takes her awkward personality (as demonstrated on numerous talk show appearances) and gets rid of her mullet to play Bella. Call me crazy, but I thought actresses were supposed to…act.
And the only good thing about Robert Pattinson in this movie is that he wasn’t really in it. He was thankfully absent from the creamy center of this Oreo movie. It is black and white with very little surprises; a guilty pleasure to a balanced diet.
It wasn’t the main characters that made this movie remotely watchable—it was the fringe characters. Michael Welch as Mike and Anna Kendrick as Jessica were hilarious as Bella’s school friends and provided the only lip-twitching moments of the film.
If Lautner is jailbait for you, cast your eyes to the rest of his “pack” (Jacob is a werewolf in the movie). While taking up minimal screen time, his wolfie-brothers are just as tasty and much more culturally acceptable for the moms out there.
The more traditional, human-eating vampires, the Volturi are also pretty entertaining to watch. Dakota Fanning as the sadistic Jane worked for me despite Fanning’s squeaky-clean image. Michael Sheen is always a delight, and as Aro he almost eclipsed (no pun intended) Stewart and Pattinson’s performances in his tiny role.
Of the Cullen crowd, Ashley Greene as Alice got the biggest boost in screen time and she did well with it.
Don’t go into the theater expecting movie-making genius. Expect giggling girls and go with it—for being a tweener special, it’s a pleasure most people will find something to like about; even if it is only the eye-candy.
If anything, New Moon is proving the Twilight Saga’s rising bankability. New Moon has already grossed $40 million more than Twilight and has only been out for two weeks.
Despite my distaste and displeasure with everything Twilight, the ending scene teased me just enough to be among those who can’t wait for the third installment “Eclipse” in June.
Damn you Chris Weitz with your climatic ending to a mediocre movie, damn you.
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