Film Review: The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)
There exists a peculiar symmetry between the intensity with which film critics worldwide despise the Twilight franchise and the fervour of feminist scholars who have similarly condemned Stephenie Meyer's literary phenomenon. Whilst the latter object to the saga's reactionary, patriarchal attitudes towards sex and gender relations—concerns about the ideological diet being fed to impressionable young women—the former's antipathy stems from rather more self-interested grievances. The commercial triumph of these films, however much one might attribute it to the undeveloped tastes of a teenage female demographic, represents something of a professional humiliation for critics who continue to discover, and shall doubtless continue discovering, ever more convincing grounds for delivering a thumbs-down.
Alas, such circumstances show no sign of improving with New Moon, the second instalment in this inexhaustible saga. The narrative commences with the romance between human teenager Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and her 109-year-old vampire paramour Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) entering a period of pronounced crisis. Edward, concluding that their perpetually unconsummated liaison might ultimately bring Bella to harm, elects to abandon her. The inconsolable young woman finds solace, after a fashion, in the company of Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), a strapping and handsomely muscular Native American youth who happens, rather inconveniently, to be a werewolf harbouring a profound ancestral hatred for vampires.
One might reasonably suppose that the introduction of this love triangle would render New Moon somewhat more engaging than its predecessor. Director Chris Weitz certainly endeavours to make the enterprise visually arresting, deploying the impressive landscapes of the American Northwest and the sun-drenched vistas of Tuscan Italy to complement the impeccable physiognomy of his youthful cast. Yet these superficial improvements cannot salvage the fundamental deficiencies that plague the production.
Melissa Rosenberg's screenplay preserves the desperately uninspired dialogue of Meyer's source material, burdening the performers with exchanges so devoid of wit or vitality that one wonders whether the entire affair might have been redeemed had the filmmakers embraced self-parody. As it stands, the emptiness and profound unlikeability of the two principal characters remain stubbornly intact. Bella's ceaseless moping and Edward's theatrical brooding offer little for audiences to latch onto emotionally; they are ciphers rather than characters, vessels for adolescent fantasy rather than recognisable human beings—or even recognisable supernatural beings, for that matter.
The supporting players fare marginally better. The Volturi sequence in Italy, featuring Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning as ancient vampire aristocrats, injects a modicum of much-needed menace and camp theatricality into proceedings. Similarly, the werewolf pack sequences benefit from the palpable physical presence of Lautner and his fellow shape-shifters, whose transformations at least provide some visual spectacle to punctuate the interminable romantic agonising.
Yet these moments of relative interest are too few and far between to justify the film's bloated 130-minute running time. For all but the most committed devotees of Meyer's novels, New Moon represents a singularly disagreeable manner in which to expend two hours of one's existence. One can only take cold comfort in the knowledge that but two novels remain to be adapted for the screen. Somehow, one suspects, even that ordeal shall be endured.
RATING: 3/10
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