The Twilight Saga: New Moon

The H-Bomb: The romance between Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and her androgynous, emo vampire boyfriend Edward (Robert Pattinson) has hit a snag. Meanwhile, she’s started to take a liking to her old Native American friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who has a secret or two of his own. Teenage fangirls, start your drooling…

Let me start off by saying that I am not a teenage girl and therefore “Twilight” just isn’t my thing. In fact, when I was asked to review this, I thought to myself, “Man, Rick Swift must really hate me!” I made a point of not watching the original, and now I’m being forced to see the sequel?! Father, why have you forsaken me?!

Oh well, bearing in mind that I am not the target audience for this movie, the second in the phenomenally (and bewilderingly) popular “Twilight” series, I went into it determined to be as open minded as possible, because every film deserves a fair shake from me, and hey, it does have vampires, which I generally dig.

The first thing I did when I was tasked with reviewing “New Moon”, was to go rent the original film, to familiarize myself with the “saga,” and I must say that it did not give me high hopes for the sequel. Aside from some nice direction and strong performances, I found the first “Twilight” to be about as exciting and interesting as watching a dog take a shit. To me the whole thing played out like a cheesy soap opera, complete with exceptionally lame dialogue, with some super natural elements mixed in. So I approached the sequel with pretty low expectations and… what do you know, I didn’t hate it at all.

Which is not to say that I loved it, or even really liked it, but again, taking into account that I am not part of the teeny-bopper demographic, I have to say this movie is not bad. It starts out with Bella the human and Edward the vampire still very much in love, with Edward endlessly stating how he’ll always be with her and how he’ll always protect her, so on and so forth. This is a good thing, because Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre), the redheaded female vampire, is out to kill Bella as revenge for the death of her mate at the hands of the Cullens. But after Bella is attacked by a member of the Cullen family, Edward realizes that the best way to protect her is to leave her, which he does, vowing to never see her again.

This throws Bella into a deep depression for several months. She becomes completely withdrawn, sitting around staring out the window all day, and having horrible nightmares that make her scream hysterically in the middle of the night. Ain’t love grand? This cycle of misery goes on until one night when Bella discovers that if she puts herself in perilous situations, Edward will appear to her as an apparition warning her of danger. So Bella figures that a ghost Edward is better than no Edward and decides to start taking up thrill seeking type hobbies like… motorcycle riding.

She purchases a couple of junked motorbikes and enlists the help of her newly hunky friend Jacob to help repair them. As they spend their afternoons together, they begin to realize that they’re attracted to each other. But all of the sudden, Jacob begins acting strangely, with a violent temper that seems to come out of nowhere. He also seems to know more about Edward than he’s letting on. All the while, people have reported seeing large wolf like creatures in the nearby forest…

This film basically has everything you’d expect from a “Twilight” movie; teen romance, teen love, teen anguish, teen angst, teen horniness, with some vampires and werewolves thrown into the crock pot for good measure. Director Chris Weitz (American Pie, The Golden Compass) takes over for Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the first film, but the change isn’t all that noticeable as the visual style and tone are pretty much the same. There is more action in this installment, but it’s nothing to write home about.

The writing is as gooey as it was last time, and gets very redundant, with characters constantly proclaiming their love for each other while bemoaning how they can never be together for one reason or another. There’s even an obvious reference to Romeo & Juliet in the first part of the film. The cast does perfectly fine, given the mushy material they have to work with, and the tween-age girls will have plenty of eye candy to feast upon in the form chiseled, naked male torsos.

While “Twilight” is not my cup of tea (sorry, just not that into gazing at chiseled, naked male torsos), I won’t partake in any fashionable bashing of it, either. Truth be told, I found it perfectly watchable. If the reaction of the young females in the audience I saw it with is any indicator, the movie’s fan base will eat this up and ask for more, which they will get, since the third one, “Eclipse”, is already in the can. So, while real horror fans like myself may be completely baffled and dismayed over this “Twilight” craze, the audience this film was made for will be more than satisfied. As for me, when it comes to vampire tales, I’ll take “Nosferatu” or “Near Dark” over this kid’s stuff any day.