Dir. Chris Weitz, US, 2009, 130mins
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Ashley Greene, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning
Review by Matthew Rodgers
On the back of stuffing up one much cherished literary adaptation with 2007′s directionless The Golden Compass, Chris Weitz takes the reins for the second instalment of the unbelievably phenomenal Twilight Saga, as it’s now prefixed, after the surprisingly enjoyable but tediously navel gazing first film took a $350M bite out of the worldwide box office.
Picking up well into the slow-mo throes of young love, Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) are living as normal a life as possible for a one hundred year old vampire and an eighteen year old girl going to high school. When an innocuous paper cut exposes their relationship for the ticking time-bomb it so obviously is, the Family Cullen, along with everyone’s favourite anaemic heartthrob, decide to leave Bella behind in order to protect her.
Alone and in full-on, first film moping mode, Bella turns to childhood friend and member of the mysterious Quileute tribe, Jacob (Taylor Lautner), in order to mend her broken heart. Trouble is, our replacement Casanova hides a secret of his own, one that promises to heap more conflict upon our lovelorn narrator.
The good news for all the Twi-Hard fans is that on this particular lunar cycle New Moon is infinitely superior to the first instalment in nearly every aspect. Gone are the ponderous melancholic glances off camera, replaced with genuine emotional resonance and more noticeably and successfully a sense of humour.
Watering down the film’s tendency to take this tale of star-crossed lovers too seriously (although the early Romeo & Juliet allegories are unsubtly rammed home), there are some real laughs to be had here. Even the broody vamps lighten up with some self deprecating genre digs and the wonderful movie-within-movie description of action film �Face Punch �, just exemplifies the broader appeal these once introverted characters possess.
This may have something to do with their growing comfort in their respective roles for the pap-happy trio of Pattinson, Stewart and the human six-pack that is Taylor Lautner – the narrative device used to get him to go topless is hilariously gratuitous.
R-Patz now seems at ease in his pasty skin with Edward being a much more expressive character, not just in deliverance of clunkers such as �Bella, you give me everything by just breathing�, but in his presence throughout the story.
Similarly Lautner emerges from the shadows once Pattinson is side-tracked from the narrative (his role actually beefed up somewhat from the Cullen-less book) so that you don’t even miss the toothy lothario that much. It’s no wonder that the �Team Jacob� and �Team Edward� groups dominate the hormonal forums of the World Wide Web, they are direct opposites and Lautner is an extremely refreshing antithesis with his straightforward exuberance.
Stewart is the only one that suffers in the character development department. Bella was a given a reasonably interesting set-up first time around but here she is sullied with an early suicide thread that is repetitively recurring whilst never fully explored beyond the surface level as this movie has that Empire Strikes Back/Two Towers middle act feel, maybe her best work is yet to come.
The aesthetics of New Moon are much more accomplished too; a wonderful 360° time lapse shot is indulgent but beautifully inventive and the visual effects never saturate the story. This world maintains a level of realism through its minimalist approach.
It’s not all swooning praise though. An over-reliance on pimping the emo-friendly soundtrack sometimes dominates proceedings with two very distinct results. On the one hand it removes tension from a potentially excellent and narratively important vampire/werewolf smackdown and on the other it can mean that long periods resemble the most cloying episodes of Dawson’s Creek.
The film is also let down by a script that is structured in a way that results in a constant plateau of events, never truly peaking. Even the race against time finale feels tacked on and lacks any real tension.
New Moon manages however to build successfully upon the mythos established in act one, tantalisingly introducing Michael Sheen’s uber-vamp and Dakota Fanning’s prissy little psychic, and it should go a long, long way in winning new converts to Stephenie Meyer’s unoriginal, but ever intriguing gothic-romance.
