New Moon

When the bandwagon roles into town you can rest assured that I will be looking the other way. As the bandwagon moves on I will be the loser running after it screaming “wait for me I am trendy” and the Twilight series is no exception.

I had never heard of Edward Cullen until I saw the trailer for Twilight in the cinema and I will freely admit that it caught my attention. There was plenty of time to read the books before the movie was released and I read Twilight and New Moon. I purchased the third book, the name of which escapes me, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it. In the end I gave all three books away and went begrudgingly to see Twilight. Looking at my original Twilight review I gave it 6/10 which in hindsight seemed awfully generous.

Last night it was New Moons turn.

PLOT: Edward and Bella are deep in love until Bella gets a paper cut which causes the Cullen’s to leave town. Edward breaks Bella’s heart. Bella moves on with Jacob. Jacob is a werewolf. Edward believes Bella killed herself from grief (arrogant Bastard). Edward goes to Italy to be killed by the Volturi (or something). Bella shows up. Edward is angry that Bella believed his lie that he didn’t love her and had the barefaced cheek to more on without him (arrogant Bastard). They go home. Edward proposes and the movie ends END PLOT

It really is an achievement that the movie, from my limited memory, followed so closely to the book. How absolutely nothing was stretched out for the best part of two hours is beyond my level of comprehension.

The introduction of Edward Cullen in New Moon is one of the most unintentionally funny introductions in movie history. From the moment I saw the Cullen’s fancy car pull up I was thinking “please let him walk in slow motion, please let him walk in slow motion” and alas he did. Robert Pattison needs to watch some Mark Wahlberg movies in order to perfect the badass slow mo walk. Edward Cullen either stands still, zooms across the room or walks in slow-mo and this was funnier when he did it in the Volturi’s house in Italy.

The Cullen family is supposed to be beautiful and they all are apart from Edward who is this weird amber colour and spends his time sulking around looking worrying constipated and as though he is off his head on drugs. He looks more like a reject from Trainspotting than the picture of perfection he is supposed to be. I held the Jensen-Ackles-Sexometer up to the screen when Edward was on and it shattered in my hands.

I don’t have anything positive to say about Pattinsons acting so we shall move on.

Once the Cullen’s up and leave we head over to the other side of the forest to meet the Jacob and the Wolves. If you are a werewolf you must follow a strict dress code of denim cuts offs and no other item of clothing. I appreciate that it may have taken the special effects department some time in pencilling in all the six packs but once was more than enough. The character Jacob comes in a close second to Charlie as being the most sympathetic and underused character in the entire series. We mush not let anything, not even good character development, get in the way of a depressing emo montage.

The novel New Moon did contain a lot of moping around and the movie was no exception.

If the character Bella was a real person I would hate her. Perhaps its because I have never been in love and when I split up with my ex I did not crumple to a heap in a forest and lie in the foetal position until some strange, semi naked man came and carried me home to my mother. (the foetal position came much later when I realised that I left my copy of The Shinning in his house)

Never has the female protagonist in a series been as wet and pathetic as Bella Swan. On the “Jean Gray Scale of Pathetic Fainting Women” she is right up there with Jean herself. I just hate the character. Bella is needy, selfish and just uses Jacob to her own gains and then ditches him to go off and marry Edward.

The last sentence did sound a bit more passionate than I intended. I just don’t understand how people absolutely love these self-involved characters. Can someone please explain the attraction? (for the record that was a rhetorical question)

I went into New Moon expecting to hate it as I don’t understand the characters it is based on but Chris Weitz has made one uninspiring movie. You can argue all you want about the source material but at the end of the day the movie was just bland.

There was some awful directing. Bella sat for three months on her wicker chair waiting for Edward to return. The passage of time was shown by the camera spinning around her room three times (one for each month) and as it went to the window we were shown rain, leaves and snow representing each month she sat there. Her bedroom got even more messy with each rotation. It was lazy direction for an even lazier attempt to show passage of time.

The writers ran out of dialogue in parts and showed of their lack of talent by resorting to constant voiceovers with Bella writing emails to Alice to inform the Cullen’s and the audience what has been happening. You must be a really untalented hack if you need to resort to this sort of thing.

Dear Hilts, Emma-hen and Saz.

I love you all but I will never understand the excitement over Twilight. I would rather take my chances with Hildegarde than sit through this messy piece of crap again.

At least I will get a year of peace before the next one.

You owe me two hours of my life and I will collect same tomorrow night.
Looking forward to 2012 on Monday

Love McQueen

Clichéd Ireland is one of my favourite location clichés but Clichéd Italy comes a close second. Italy is a country full of vineyards and at the end of the straight road your European sports car is driving on you will arrive at an old city built into the side of a hill.

Dear Special Effects Department

Even though Alice was driving along the straight Italian roads in a yellow car it was indeed not a Ferrari or Porsche but very noticeably a Renault. The pencilled in six-packs took up to much budget.

Love Over Opinionated Nobody

I was never going to love this movie. It would be considered an achievement if I left the cinema just liking it. The frustrating thing is Stephanie Meyer has hit upon some good ideas but not developed them and instead chooses to focus in on the emotionally abusive relationship between Edward and Bella.

The best scene in the movie was the chase scene through the forest with Victoria and the wolves. The idea of Vampires and Werewolves should have been pushed to the front and even a very basic use of their respective mythologies would have given the movie the most gentlest of pushes away from the apparent love story.

The character Victoria didn’t even have a single line in the movie. There was no standoff that was hinted at throughout the movie.

The scenes I enjoyed the most contained neither vampire nor werewolf but Bella’s normal school friends, who again were underused. Her Juno inspired pop culture referencing friend Jessica was very much a welcome relief as was the other friend who didn’t have name but looked a bit like Edward Norton with a bigger head.

I do understand fan girls because I am one. I call myself a Salt Gunner. I worship at the alter of Kripe. My name is Karina Bamber and I am a Supernatural-alcoholic. Last night I felt the need to wear Supernatural related clothing just to make myself feel normal in a New Moon themed environment.

I just don’t get Meyer. I don’t get Edward and Bella and I don’t get the hype surrounding Twilight. I tried but reading the books. I tried by watching the movie which from a movie fans perspective alone was just god awful.

I do take a positive. If this is the sort of shite that gets published and recognition then there is hope for me yet.

I would give the movie 3/10. It was as overlong as this review. It was as clunky and as poorly written as this review. It was badly directed and in parts badly acted. The few good parts got pushed to the back and the emo soundtrack got turned up.

New Moon sucked harder than a toothless vampire gumming away at the neck of an unconscious slut.