Plot deficient to the point of formlessness, New Moon ups the Twilight franchise’s schmaltzy teen-lit melodrama without providing
any sort of narrative backbone to sustain it. As with its predecessor, this
sequel is built around the chaste romance between human teen Bella Swan (Kristen
Stewart) and hunky vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a pair of fashion
mag-ready actors stuck brooding and pining with laughable severity – to watch
and listen to Stewart violently scream during nightmares in which she longs for
her fanged boyfriend is to witness the perfect storm of overwrought writing and
hammy acting. In this installment, Edward decides to abandon Forks, Washington
and Bella in order to protect her from all his vamp friends eager to feast on
her blood (as well as those who might use her against him), thus breaking her
heart and leaving her in the care of perpetually shirtless Jacob (Taylor
Lautner), who it turns out is a werewolf. Director Chris Weitz drenches his
mopey proceedings in slow-mo shots of Pattinson strutting and Bella yearning,
his over-the-top tone in line with material that bluntly, and incapably,
strives for Romeo & Juliet-style
tragic grandeur even as it goes so heavy on soapy silliness (not least of which
is the continuing sight of Edward’s skin shining like sparkly diamonds when
touched by the sun) that the entire affair plays like a joke. Basic questions
abound – what’s so special about the featureless Bella? Why does Jacob put up
with Bella’s cruel cock-tease behavior? And why would Bella even be interested
in Edward and Jacob, two dim-witted, one-expression-only ciphers? – but
dissecting the film in such obvious ways is to miss the point entirely. New Moon is only after the affectation
of emotion, of swoon-worthy poses and faux-momentous aesthetics. Nonetheless,
given how drearily slipshod and uneventful this chapter’s basic plotting is
(Bella misses Edward, risks death via extreme sports so she can see Edward’s
spirit, and gives Jacob blue balls), it’s hard not to feel that anyone – save,
perhaps, for the cornily named Twi-hard zealots – would derive greater
satisfaction from the similar, yet far more cheesily entertaining, True Blood.
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