Glorified fan-fiction

Rating: 4/10 (24 November 2009)

Twilight: New Moon - Picking up a little while after the first film, the film again follows the trials and tribulations of Bella (Kirsten Stewart), the plain but beautiful, dull but fascinating girl. She turns the big 18 and the Cullens invite her to a birthday party. An accident ensues, and Edward (Robert Pattinson *swoon*) decides to send his threatening family away so he can live with Bella in piece. Ha ha, just joking. That would have been the smart thing to do. Edward instead decides to leave Bella forever, out of a desire to not hurt her. Surprisingly this does not work as Bella has several hilarious bitch-fits and gets even more inhumanly stupid. She takes ridiculous risks such as taking an ill-advised ride with the biker dudes, cliff diving all in the name of seeing her boyfriend in weird unexplained visions. Man-tastic Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) is there to the rescue, though he is not all he seems to be. Bella must choose which man to go with and the stakes become higher as Edward, with two films to go, decides to kill himself whilst under the impression that Bella is dead.
It's funny that it took me so long to write that out, considering the fact that this film has almost as little plot as the first film. In fact by all accounts it is the same film told over. Bella, in a state of sorrow, meets another man and discovers he is a monster inside. Thank god this time she found a man who can even slightly act. Taylor Lautner is warmer and more engaging than Robert Pattinson, who still painfully stammers his lines and always seems to look down at a tree stump next to Bella when he is talking to her. If only they could both keep their shirts on (a thousand times over for Pattinson)! There is enough man-ab action in this film to make Mathew McConaughey blush and put a shirt on. There's also enough terrible CGI to make the guys at Industrial Light & Magic's heads explode. Seriously, I haven't seen effects this bad outside of the Sci-Fi channel.
I have finally realized why Stephanie Meyer has done so well with these books. It's not just that they are bastardizations of classical horror themes. It's that they are bastardizations of horror that are especially appealing to girls (or gay men). Androgynous pale men with glitter on? David Bowie's been rocking that look for decades. Werewolf men who never wear shirts? What's next, zombies with codpieces to hold their enormous packages? Some that glitters, however, is gold. Michael Sheen is very watchable as the villain Aro. It was lovely to be reminded what real acting is. Ditto for Ashley Greene as the spunky sister vampire Alice Cullen. Gee, Alice must have considered slitting her immortal wrists a couple of thousand times at reading all the melodramatic drivel Bella kept sending her in a grieved state. I can think of no worse penpal to have. As a matter of fact, can we just follow the story of Alice and the Vampire Illuminati for awhile instead? I'll probably get lynched for saying this, but these films are still an awful influence on young girls. Bella, with an absence of self esteem, is the worst role model for any young women and brings a new low to the empowered girl image everywhere. She tries to kill herself just to get closer to a boy. What could possibly be a weaker character image? Her main bargaining chip in all instances is that she could get hurt. Edward too is an awful influence on young women. He's invasive, domineering and caught up in self loathing. "My life is awful as an immortal." Um...maybe if you didn't put yourself through high school for the last 90 years things might be better.
New Moon is better than Twilight, though this says nothing. It's funny when it tries to be, and has fewer accidentally funny moments (minus for me actually). It has more likable supporting characters, and only about 20 minutes of Edward Cullen. It's still too damn long and melodramatic. I guess that's what happens when you give fan-fiction a film treatment. D+