It’s amazing to think that it was only a year ago that Twilight hit cinemas and came seemingly out of nowhere to score a $69 million opening weekend in the US, which was about twice its budget and more than Quantum Of Solace made on its debut a week earlier. Since then Twi-hards have seemingly taken over the world, and there’s a whole legion of people who’ve emerged who are utterly devoted to Robert Pattinson (and it’s not just tweenage girls, as I know quite a few grown women who’d like to get their hands on him).
However the Robsessed might not get quite as much R-Patz action as they’d hoped this time around, as for much of the time in New Moon, he isn’t around (in person, at least). The movie starts with Bella and vampire Edward in love and happy, but after a potentially deadly incident at her birthday party, Edward decides it’s too dangerous to be around her, and so he and the rest of the Cullens leave Forks and the heartbroken Bella behind.
Unable to come to terms with losing the love of her life, Bella starts putting herself in dangerous situations, because for some reason at those moments she feels as if Edward is there with her. Her only other solace comes in the form of rekindling her friendship with Jacob Black, who she’s known since she was young. However Jacob has some supernatural secrets of his own. In most films it would be a spoiler to reveal what these secrets are, but it shouldn’t come as even the vaguest surprise to anyone going to see New Moon that Jacob becomes part of a werewolf pack that has emerged amongst the Quileute Native Americans.
It’s quite a long film (130 minutes long, to be precise), which has the feeling of setting up a lot of stuff ready for the third and fourth parts of the series. While in the novel, the ending seems to slightly come out of nowhere, because the book needed a conclusion but the main story wasn’t ready to provide one, the film actually makes things seem slightly more climactic than they did on the page. The whole final act with Bella suddenly heading off to Italy to meet the fabled vampire royalty, The Volturi, still slightly comes out of nowhere but is well handled and looks gorgeous, and provides a welcome break from the increasingly complicated goings-on in Forks. Just don’t expect many of the film’s plot strands to be wrapped up with a bow when the credits roll.
The set-up of the story means that this is a film that’s unlikely to appeal to anyone who didn’t already like the first film. Indeed, with Bella spending much of New Moon being moody and depressed that Edward’s left her, she’s likely to annoy anyone who didn’t see the emergence of their love for each other in the first film (indeed she’s a little annoying anyway).
Despite the presence of a new director behind the camera, Christ Weitz (The Golden Compass), it very much feels like a continuation of the first film, except with a little more humour and action this time around. However it still has the absolute earnestness of both the books and the first film, which takes very seriously the teenage sensation that every thought and feeling you have at that age seems deeper and more profound than anyone has ever felt before.
Also rather like the first film, there is the slight feeling that this is the teenage girl version of porn (e.g. lots of gorgeous young men and unyielding romance). New Moon adds to the dreamboat quotient with the addition of a buffed up Taylor Lautner and his fellow members of the wolf pack, who are sure to get their own legion of devoted fans (the marketing for the movie has already set up the Team Edward and Team Jacob dynamic, both in anticipation of the choice Bella has to eventually make between the vampire and the werewolf, who are natural enemies, but also to further the Twi-hard devotion). The swooning will also be increased by the fact the wolf pack seem to have an aversion to wearing shirts and so spend as much as of the film as they can with their nipples on display – when they’re not being giant dogs, that is.
It really is a case of if you liked the first film (and I did, so New Moon is fine by me), you’ll probably like this one, but if you weren’t a fan of Twilight or didn’t see it, there’s not much point watching this one. Fans certainly won’t be disappointed by New Moon (other than the lack of Edward, although at least R-Patz gets his shirt off a couple of time to make up for it), as the story is more involved and intriguing than it was first time around.
It is essentially Twilight’s equal and keeps a similar tone and style, while continuing the story from pretty much from the moment we left it, which will be all that the first film’s many fans will want to hear. It also takes its time to set things up for the more climactic events of Eclipse (as well as Breaking Dawn, although while very interesting, that story does have the slight feeling of being an afterthought). As a result, it does leave a lot of plot strands hanging, and Jacob’s story pretty much gets dropped the moment Bella head off to Italy, but that’s all largely because they’ll be dealt with in Eclipse.
While many may feel we’re already on Twilight overload, there’s actually only seven and a half months until the third film arrives in cinemas in early July, 2010, as the makers seem keen to get all the Twilight films out as quickly as possible, while vampire romance fever is still at a high.
Overall Verdict: A movie that will more than satisfy Twilight fans, despite a smaller role for R-Patz, which expands the franchise’s increasingly complex mythology from vampires into werewolves.
Reviewer: Phil Caine
