New Moon

What am I doing with my life?

I could be doing anything with my life. I could learn how to write in calligraphy, I could start writing on my movie script, I could be watching better movies! But no. We're talking about New Moon. There is no forgiving sentence like for the first Twilight movie, I got fed up with this movie before the 30 minute mark and I can pin 90% of the films issues on a single character. Yes, we get to delve into the disturbing psyche of Bella Swan. Oh my God, this girl. Hang on I gotta go point by point in the story briefly so we can have context for the criticism. Okay so movie starts up, and Bella is having dreams that she will grow old and frail while Edward will stay his pasty fruity self forevermore. Okay, is that not essentially what having a mid-life crisis is? And she's having it at the very mature age of eighteen! Lady are you serious? I know high school teenage girls can be kind of vain but this....this is some next level f***ery. Oh and major props to the subtle allegory of this story and Romeo And Juliet which is already fundamentally wrong on every level, because 1. Romeo And Juliet is a tragedy, not a love story. Read the damn book. 2. It's Shakespeare and actually has prose, and meaning, and not mind numbing character motivation. And 3. It has no deeper meaning in this story. It's just a school assignment. So what even is the damn point? Ugh, anyway where was I? Okay, so it's Bella's birthday and she has a small party at the Cullen's house and somehow has the mother of all paper cuts from opening a present to the point where it's dripping onto their carpet and totally sets off Jasper, one of the newer members of the family. And what follows made me laugh so hard I couldn't believe it. So Edward sees this coming and gives the most first class, most absent minded palm strike to Bella I have ever seen. He's like, oh damn I need to get Bella out of danger, then pushes her so hard I'm amazed she didn't go through the damn wall and slams into plate glass and absolutely shreds her arm. Good judgement call Edward. So this leads Edward to believe he cannot protect Bella from anything so he brings her to the middle of the woods and tells her him and his family are leaving, totally either forgetting or apathetic to the fact that Victoria from the last movie, creepy James' girlfriend is hunting Bella. Just completely gives up. Great boyfriend material. And then the film just....stops, for like 2/3rds of the movie. Bella becomes completely helpless until the end of the movie, honestly you think Edward poisoned her by how she's shuddering and gasping for breath in the woods and nearly dies from exposure. This is where Bella gets insufferable. She trances out, she sits in a chair and the camera circles her as three months pass and it feeeeels like 3 months, just melodrama bullshit. She wakes up screaming in pain because the heartbreak is that real man, and all I have to say is I have lost people in my life, people I have lost for the rest of my life and meant more than the world to me and even I did not do that. What the ass. Oh my God I nearly forgot about the best part! Bella is so driven insane by grief, like full on Macbeth hallucinatory grief and sees these ghostly images of Edward, like straight up Obi-Wan Kenobi in smoke and mist....and she's okay with that. She literally says in the movie "Maybe I have gone crazy, and I'm okay with that.". This is amazing. And the film on repeated instances calls her out on how batshit crazy and stupid she is. Both Anna Kendrick and Alice call her insane, an adrenaline junkie, and an idiot! Do you see why they are my favorite characters in this entire series? Like sweet Jesus I could bitch for hours about her but we got other stuff to talk about. I will say this, since the vampires are absent for the majority of this film we get a new supernatural presence in Forks, we get werewolves and I actually like how the movie takes the time to get to know them a bit, how their order works, defining characteristics, it's not bad stuff. But jeez does Jacob suffer in this movie, I didn't talk about him in the last movie cause he didn't have that much a part to play in it, so it's his proper and permanent introduction in this movie. But what sucks is he goes from this very nice, kind, even a bit dorky kid to this controlling and aggresive son of a bitch. It's like every good thing the first movie had going for it gets completely screwed over. To further prove my point of tinkering with the story and making it better for the movies, you could have Jacob be a real upstanding, very nice, very caring friend, just a swell guy to everyone in town who always hangs out with Bella and is her one and only true friend. Then Edward would be going through some troubling times and has to leave to take some time for himself, leaving Bella for a short time and she confides in Jacob who's a very supportive friend but loves her to where he respects her choices. Unlike him being a creepy controlling love rival in this movie. And could further this conflict because he gets very angry and kinda bloodthirsty because of his werewolf instincts and persona. Kinda like that other werewolf movie, what was it called? It had a really nice guy who was inflicted with this terrible curse and became a bloodthirsty monster who could hurt or kill his loved ones and family, hmmm I think it was called....Howling 2. Hell it could be a great sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type deal as well! It could really work if they actually did something. Again, you could keep the plot points but better the story and characters. The romance is even more sick inducing and unwarranted in this movie than the last 15 or so minutes of Twilight. It just seems like a shallow relationship, with Bella not wanting to age, constantly trailing along these boys, and becoming a total nutjob that I wouldn't feel safe or comfortable around. Like how codependent and worthless are you without having a guy around? This concept doesn't even work with the stock harlequin romance novels with you know, this young lady tempted by these two mysterious kinda studly guys and has to choose between them, because the characters are so bent ass backwards and done so poorly it's a slog to get through. The one shining star besides Billy Burke of course is Michael Sheen as this I guess elder vampire of like this cult thing(?) called the Volturi. Okay. He is great! He is campy fun, very much in the vein of Zuse in Tron Legacy and it's like he knows what movie he is in and decides to just have a ball and relish the scenery chewing cause he is a blast! But it ain't enough to save this movie. I see what they were attempting to do, to broaden the world, give the second piece of the love triangle some weight and standing, and deepen the so called romance of our two leads. But it fails spectacularly. I can appreciate what they tried to do with giving the werewolves you know this sort of mythos but it didn't go deeper with it, if memory serves it goes a bit more into their world in the book but it has been considerable time since last I read those novels but you know, sticky star for trying. Like if Twilight was just this one off movie based on a popular book and they just left it at that, this would not be that bad a problem. It would just be an average, harmless, decent movie of it's time and nothing more. But every sequel keeps digging deeper and deeper into the septic tank and I dread the next movie because I don't think a damn thing happens in it. Which is saying a lot after this movie!! Oh my God I spent money on this movie, I'm gonna throw up.