"New Moon" is an Overlong, Vapid, Pretentious and Painfully Boring Sequel...

Rating: 3/10 (27 February 2011)

There's a point in "The Twilight Saga: New Moon", where our heroine Bella Swan (Kristin Stewart) and a friend emerge from a movie theater, and her friend begins to rant about how she hates the zombie sub-genre of horror, and then preaches about how she thinks it's silly and lame that a particular zombie movie (George Romero's classic "Dawn of the Dead", though it's never mentioned by name, you know that's what they're referring to) preaches about consumerism. At this point, I angrily pointed my finger at the screen and uttered some words I cannot repeat here. It's not that they were making fun of "Dawn of the Dead"- that's fine. The problem is that this film is a glaring example of squandered potential and storytelling, and it's downright offensive that they should say anything about a film considered to be a classic, by both horror and general audiences alike.
This film, directed by Chris Weitz, is a sequel to "Twilight", based on the popular novels by Stephanie Meyer. People who read my "Twilight" review know I actually thought it was decent. So I turned this one on a few days ago expecting another (somewhat) pleasant surprise.
When I first watched "Twilight", I expected a mess. I was actually taken by how well the film worked. It had a lot of problems, and I only gave it a slightly above average 6 out of 10, but it wasn't bad...
This was bad.
We begin with Bella (Kristin Stewart again an enormous bore), who has grown worried about her future with vampire squeeze Edward- she is having nightmares about growing old, while he remains trapped in the body of a teenager, and she fears one day, he won't want her anymore.
On her 18th birthday, she visits Edward (Robert Pattinson, who this time around, doesn't seem to be taking his role seriously, and just reads his lines flatly) and his adoptive family. However, when one of Edward's siblings attacks Bella from a sudden fit of his vampiric instincts, Edward decides it's too dangerous for him to continue to see Bella, and he vanishes, leaving her.
Bella spends months pining and sobbing for her lost love, but finds a new romance with Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Things finally start looking up for her, when suddenly Jacob disappears, and all hope seems lost. Finally, she reconnects with Jacob and learns that he has become a werewolf, and similar to Edward, he feels it too dangerous to remain with her. She also begins to see ghostly depictions of Edward appear around her, trying to keep her safe from the dangers of everyday life. And soon some strange events unfold, forcing Bella to confront both of her lost loves, decide if she's strong enough to pursue them, and ultimately, see if she's strong enough to save several lives- her own included.
The film does have some promises. The whole notion of the Romeo and Juliet-esque romance is interesting, some of the characters are likable, and there are some nice twists and turns through the story. Also, the direction was a lot better this time (Weitz does a much better job illustrating the visuals than Catherine Hardwicke did in the first film), and the music was fabulous.
But there are just too many problems in this entry, and it's really just a checklist of what NOT to do in a sequel.
For starters, the film is outlandishly boring. Running at 130 minutes, it felt like twice that. The story unfolds at a snail's pace, and absolutely nothing happened for the first hour. Everything seemed slow. It was a chore to watch. And the kicker? Anytime anything actually started to happen... the scene cuts. I'm not kidding, during the first big "action" sequence where two werewolves go at it (about halfway through the movie), we only get about 15 seconds of fighting, before we abruptly cut to the next scene- we don't actually get to see the fight, we just cut to another scene altogether. This happens repeatedly. Whenever something happens that promises to move us forward, we simply cut away to another scene. What?! This movie is a horrible tease.
Secondly, the writing (courtesy of both the novel and the script by Melisa Rosenberg) was painful. Nevermind some lines and scenes that are quite misogynistic, but also, the dialog is outstandingly soap-opera-ish. Edward never speaks without dripping off cheese ("Bella, you breathing is my gift!"), Bella spends her time spewing revoltingly pretentious and clichéd dialog, Jacob is basically a compilation of every corny "bad boy" ever, etc.
Also, the film has no structure. As I said above, it takes almost a full hour for anything to happen. And once the plot picks up, the pace quickens to a marathon speed, and too much happens. We are also given a number of plot lines that don't make sense and don't go anywhere (such as new villain Victoria who appears all of twice in the whole movie and never does anything... at all.), and enough plot holes to sink a ship. It was just too darned sloppy.
In addition, the humor is juvenile, the action is too brief (the climactic battle is cool, but over within seconds), there is no romance in the film (which is odd because this is a romance movie!), the editing is all over the map, the secondary characters are not developed... It felt like the first half of a larger story, with no climax. It was all establishment, and no pay-off.
Even the things that worked in the first movie are ignored.
I really am disappointed. I was expecting something that was at least decent, but this was just a waste of time, effort and potential. It is essentially a series of stitched-together sequences that don't contribute to an overall plot. There was no substance.
I have to give this a 3 out of 10.