The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)

Recently I was given a plastic bag full of DVDs. Included in that stash was a copy of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and so I thought I’d give it a try.

It’s hard to see why people like this shit. It’s about this girl who turns eighteen at the beginning of the film, and apparently is already upset about aging, and doesn’t want anyone to celebrate her birthday. Her vampire friend, Edward, mentions that he’s one hundred nine years old. He still looks seventeen, but just because he looks seventeen doesn’t mean he should hang around a high school. If you were one hundred years old, would you go back to high school? Of course not. I’m forty-one, and I wouldn’t. Teenagers are annoying enough when you are a teenager. Who the fuck would choose to hang around them when not forced to? Granted, I didn’t see the first movie (and I haven’t read the books because I’m not twelve), so maybe it was established that he’s retarded or a pedophile or something. He tells her, “You’re my only reason to stay alive.” Oh boy. He also says his job is to protect her. So maybe there’s some reason why he and several other vampires go to high school. Or maybe not, since he soon says he and his family are moving and she can’t come, so so much for his job. Maybe it’s his shitty makeup job that keeps him from being able to play with the adults. (Hey, makeup artists, don’t forget his neck!)

Anyway, Bella broods for months, and takes a short ride with a random guy on a motorcycle while some other girl waits. She then gets into rebuilding old motorcycles with her friend Jacob. She and Jacob argue about who is influencing whom in the building of the bikes. They order pizza and… well, nothing really happens, and none of this is important. But in voice over she says she’s happier. But she still suffers from nightmares.

All of the dialogue in this film seems to come from a thirteen-year-old girl’s diary, even the lines spoken by adult characters. Edward the vampire keeps appearing in visions, telling Bella to stop the motorcycle and whatnot. Bella doesn’t stop the motorcycle and hits her head, then tells Jacob he’s beautiful.

She goes on a date with Jacob and some other boy that likes her. The movie they go to is called Face Punch. It’s interesting because the movie they see is apparently worse than the movie they’re in. Bella turns philosophical and says to Jacob: “I’m not like a car that you can fix up. I’m never going to run right.” Again, lines directly taken from a thirteen-year-old girl’s feeble brain. Anyway, Jacob acts weird, then leaves. So then Bella broods about him being gone, which is oh so different from the long scenes where she was brooding about Edward the vampire being gone. Does anyone find teenage girls to be the least bit interesting?

Meanwhile Bella keeps writing emails to some woman named Alice, so we get a lot of voice over. Brilliant stuff like “Is it possible that there isn’t anything sane and normal at all?” This is after she learns that Jacob is a werewolf. She says to him, “So you’re a werewolf.” Jacob replies, “Yeah, last time I checked.” Have I mentioned how bad the dialogue in this film is? It is relentlessly bad.

There’s no word on what sort of monster that other guy is, the other guy that went on that date. Perhaps a zombie or mummy.

Well, Jacob and his werewolf buddies are hunting a vampire named Victoria, so that leaves Bella alone to write another email and read it to us: “Alice, I’m all right. Until I’m alone. And lately that’s all the time. Jacob’s gone. He’s hunting Victoria. And Charlie’s hunting Jacob. And you’re gone. And so is Edward.” Okay, got it. Wait, who’s Charlie?

Well, we get a fight between Victoria and the werewolf, and it’s all set to some moody pop song, so it feels like a music video rather than an action scene. But much worse is when Bella jumps off a cliff into the water, and there is another music video moment where she seems dead and yet has a vision of Edward the vampire beside her. Sadly, she is not dead. Jacob rescues her and so the film continues.

And Alice shows up, so maybe that will be an end to those annoying emails. Alice is another vampire, the sister of Edward, that we met earlier in high school or at the birthday party. Jacob doesn’t like Alice, and tells her she won’t like him when he’s angry because werewolves are apparently a pack of Doctor Banners.

Edward thinks Bella is dead because of some vision, and though Alice suddenly gets a psychic message letting her know about his intentions to kill himself, she can’t respond to the message. Apparently it’s a one-way communication device. So instead she and Bella have to drive to meet him. Does it make sense? No fucking way. Vampires travel fast; in this case, Alice drives fast. She gets another vision that the vampire council refused to kill Edward. And so… well, it doesn’t matter. Just a scene with a lot of red costumes and overly dramatic music and Bella running in slow motion.

Then some vampires are surprised because they can't read Bella's thoughts. The head vampire says, "Remarkable, she confounds us all." No one bothers to point out that she's a teenage girl and likely has no thoughts worth reading in the first place. Or, fuck it, if they're really that interested, why don't they just read all those bloody emails she wrote to Alice?

Well, it's decided that Bella will become a vampire. She decides to wait until after high school graduation for her transformation because then it will be easier on her father. Really? By the way, her father is Charlie. For some reason, she often calls him by his first name. Billy Burke's presence as Charlie is one of the good things about this film, though the dialogue he has to deliver is terrible.

Near the end, Bella is upset because she might have to choose between her vampire boyfriend and her werewolf friend. Meanwhile, the Creature From The Black Lagoon is waiting in the car. He might have to wait a little longer because this film ends with Edward the vampire proposing to the still-human Bella. The film ends before she gives her answer.

One good thing is that there are several references to Romeo And Juliet at the beginning of the film. And that's about it.