Twilight Saga: New Moon

I thought that the original Twilight film was interesting. A new spin on the classic with some fresh faces and decent plot lines. Twilight was based on a book series by Stephenie Meyer. The film prompted me to go out and purchase the next book in the series, New Moon. I liked the book far less than the first film, attributed mostly to the tedious task of tracking Bella's every thought. Because of the brilliant imagery and interesting spin in Twilight, I thought I might give the film New Moon a chance. I mean, without constant voice-overs to track Bella's thoughts, how could they possibly incorporate that much mental baggage into the film?

Boy was I dissappointed! New Moon, the film, failed me on every level. In fact, my teenager daughter, who was impressed with the buff Taylor Lautner as Jake Black, admitted that the film barely exceeded three stars. I'm not that generous. In fact, Lautner did expose his impressive abs, but he also exposed his lack of acting chops. Lautner's lines were delivered with the passion of an elementary school play. Aside from his physcial attributes, Lautner was nothing short of horrible. But I digress...



New Moon picks up where Twilight left off. For a brief period of time, all seems normal. But an unfortunate incident at the Cullen's house, combined with the fact that Mr. Cullen has been in Seattle too long, and hasn't aged, leads the Cullen's to depart Seattle (oh, woe...where will they find such dismal atmosphere to protect their diamond glistening skin?) Poor Bella (Kristen Stewart) slips into a deep depression at the departure of her true love. Not to mention her obsession with aging. Bella exorcises her demons by finding any adrenaline opportunity that avails itself. Reckless and naive. Meanwhile, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) believes Bella has killed herself and seeks his own demise.

In a nutshell, this book in the series is supposed to conceptually track the Shakespeare classic Romeo and Juliet. If you are not smart enough to figure that out, Meyer beats you over the head with the concept with references to the classic. However, Romeo and Juliet succeeds because it is a tragedy. They die. New Moon is only a tragedy in that I not only read the book, but wasted my money on the film version as well.

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