Review: ‘New Moon’ turns up heat for fans

Like an emo edition of Tiger Beat put to film, The Twilight Saga’s New Moon is everything one would expect from the follow-up to the monstrously successful 2008 film Twilight: slow-motion entrances, topless guys and a bevy of brooding and melodramatic sappiness (Edward’s voice is not the only thing that drips like honey). For its mammoth fan base with an insatiable appetite for anything related to this series, New Moon will be an instant classic. Yet, beneath the 24/7 coverage of series stars Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, along with the millions of adoring and moonstruck fans, there is a simple story of love, passion and CGI wolves.

If New Moon appears a lot like the classic Shakespearean tale Romeo & Juliet, it’s no coincidence. The film, and series author Stephanie Meyer, lifts many themes from the story and then signals to audiences that, yes, this is Romeo and Juliet only with forest frolicking and butterscotch eyes. It’s heavy-handed and has all the subtly of Lady Gaga.

All the original characters from Twilight are back: Edward Cullen (Pattinson), the brooding, un-aging vampire teen, Bella (Stewart), the depressed and lovelorn gal and Jacob (Lautner), the recently muscular Native-American kid with moviedom’s worst kept secret.

Picking up where Twilight left off, Edward and Bella are now an item. They sit together in class, make googly eyes at each other and walk around in slow-mo. Things are moving swimmingly for the couple until Bella accidentally cuts her finger at her birthday bash thrown by the Cullens. The smell of blood sends Jasper (Jackson Rathbone), who has been “off” human blood for only a short amount of time, into a frenzy and tries to feed off Bella thus putting a real damper on the festivities.

For Edward, it’s not easy being a vampire who doesn’t feed off humans, let alone being in love with a human girl who continues to age while he doesn’t. The aftermath of Bella’s 18th birthday is too much for him to handle and proceeds to tell Bella he’s taking off and their romance is finished. The Cullens disappear for most of the movie.

Meanwhile, Bella, whose heartbreak spirals uncomfortably for far too long, grows closer to her best pal Jacob. Thanks to hallucinations of Edward that appear only when Bella is doing something stupid, the two grow closer and bond over Bella’s new-found love of living dangerously. As romance between the two escalates, Jacob runs off for a few days because he’s feeling hot. This again sends Bella into another depressing state. Days later she discovers that Jacob got a haircut, is shirtless all the time and wears jean cut-offs. Oh, and he’s a werewolf. If it’s one thing movie fans know, it’s that werewolves hate vampires with vitriol only reserved for Middle Eastern spats. Add in the love of an unassuming teenage girl, whoa, get back because the fur will fly…yet in New Moon that never actually happens.

As Bella learns to deal with another classic Hollywood monster, Edward is just as miserable as Bella minus the odd screaming in his sleep. Edward, believing Bella killed herself, travels to Italy to ask the Volturi (a vampire pseduo-royal family) to kill him and take him out of his misery. The rub? Bella isn’t dead.

“I love that one movie that Kristen Stewart was in where she is depressed and bland the whole time,” was a tongue-in-cheek comment I heard about the actress regarding her propensity towards flat-lined characters. They all share one thing: glumness. It’s no different in New Moon as Ms. Stewart’s Prozac parade continues with more sadness and sulking and it is virtually impossible to truly gauge her as an actress as it is becoming more and more apparent that Stewart is merely playing herself. Mr. Pattinson is also barricaded behind Edward’s melancholy wall. If the intent was for a pale un-emotive android, Pattinson nailed it. One of the few main characters to escape the dank dungeon of despair was Mr. Lautner. “Jacob” was the only character to actually make a noticeable evolution, even if it did turn awkwardly on a dime.

Michael Sheen as the Volturi leader Aro is fantastic. His smarmy delight in pain is one of the few juicy characters in the Chris Weitz’s film, along with the underused Dakota Fanning.

Looking past the excruciating screenplay and eye-rolling character developments, New Moon’s theme, like in its predecessor, is one that should be celebrated. Love, the beauty of romance, marriage and devotion (the series takes this one to the verge of mental illness), are aspects of this series which make for fine alternatives to the raunchy garbage that tends to be directed at teens. Outside of that demographic, New Moon will have trouble appealing to viewers.

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