For all its hype, New Moon suffers with a weak story & sleepy pace!

Rating: 3/10 (14 December 2009)

If you thought the first ‘twilight’ was a sleepy teen-romance, new moon sleepwalked itself to another level. Continuing from the first flick, Bella and Edward are deeply in love. With Bella turning 18, she starts to have nightmares about becoming old, while her lover remains as youthful as ever. Reluctantly, she attends the party which the Cullens have organized for her where she accidentally cuts herself and Jasper can’t resist blood.
Edward becomes increasingly concerned about her continued vulnerability and his family leaves Forks. Soon our pretty lady finds solace in the adoring Jacob Black who later turns out to be a werewolf. The rest is a triangular love story and the tale of who saves Bella from the vengeful vampire Victoria. At this point, one wonders, can’t Bella really find ‘normal’ boyfriend or does she have an inclination for abnormal stuff?
New Moon introduces the well dressed Volturi, the law enforcers among vampires who have lived on for thousands of years. While this may look creative for an idea in a book, there is a glaring lack of depth in the treatment of characters. Worthy of mention though is the talented 15 year old Dakota Fanning as ‘Jane’ the Volturi vampire who can cause feelings of pain. It’s anyone’s guess that her casting would keep younger teens happy!
Before you can write twilight off, the bland New Moon does have a few sparks. Taylor Lautener who was just a silly long haired kid in Twlight turns into a well-chiseled Werewolf. The only efforts on visual effects are seen in the human-werewolf transformations and camera angles for chase sequences are also neat. Sadly, it doesn’t do much to redeem the damage done by its weak script and sleepy performances.
Criticism apart, the books and the movies are equally successful though the meat of the story in all the four books is only good enough for one movie of two hours. But, when the movies are raking in the moolah from ticket sales to souvenirs, owing to its teen craze internationally, why bother to change anyway! Here though, the audience count on a Friday night at a leading multiplex was a mere 14! Definitely not worth it!