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The Twilight Saga: New Moon
DIRECTOR: Christ Weitz
CAST: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Ashley Greene
RATING: **
It required a lot of effort to turn the first book in the Twilight series into a film, and it showed. Under the weight of the laboured story of a teenager in love with a vampire and the expectations of breathless fans, the film creaked with bad get-ups and even more pretentious acting.
New Moon at least doesn’t have that problem. The pair of Bella and Edward, played by Stewart and Pattinson, is spared shouldering the task of portraying their inexplicable, irreplaceable, unmatchable love on screen. The pair in question this time is Bella and Jacob, her friend who also happens to be a werewolf.
That said, Jacob (Lautner) slips into the skin of the werewolf, down to looking serious in just a pair of sawed-off and skin-tight shorts, with better ease than Pattinson does with all his carefully coiffeured, pancake-pale face and glowering-from-under-his-bushy-eyebrows look. Stewart shares an easy camaraderie and relationship with Lautner, something that she and Pattinson struggled to get across in Twilight.
New Moon has the added advantage of having a lot more going for the plot than the painful, played-out-in-repeated-detail love story of the first book. Weitz manages the appearance of the werewolves pretty well, jolting viewers with the suddenness with which they spring and the intent with which they prowl.
The Volturri episode, in contrast, is rushed through. Perhaps that’s not too bad, despite the fact that two fine actors like Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning pitch in for the brief scene. Whichever way you look at it, the whole episode of the great big house somewhere within a city where a vampire cult keeps laws, living in great refinement and secrecy, sending out its men in long cloaks to ferry in tourists for massacre, sounds highly improbable to translate with any credibility onto the big screen.
... contd.
Reader's Comments(6) | Post a comment
The much anticipated New Moon was good enough to watch, 5 times so far by me. However, the love shown to Bella by Edward at the end of the book was simply not there and I truly feel cheated. This is a LOVE STORY afterall and as much as I have seen it, I cannot imagine what could have been left out but another 10-15 minutes should have been added to show the reunion scene both on the way home and in the bedroom. Stephanie Meyer did a great job with the books and until the end of the movie Chris Weitz did a great job keeping as close to the book as possible but then fell short. They are now in the editing stage for Eclipse. I hope that they remember to show the LOVE STORY. The fans have given them almost a billion dollars so far. PLEASE REMEMBER SUMMIT we deserve and want the LOVE STORY that we fell in love with in the first place.
i loved both of the movies. They were awesome. i dont know why people are disappointed coz they were great. I can not wait for eclipse but i have to!!!
I had just finished the Twilight series when I watched twilight for the first time. Need-less-to-say....total disappointment. I watched New Moon with the same expectancy, but was pleasantly surprised. Obviously some things had been changed....rather left out of the story, but it was true to the relationship between Bella and Jacob. Unlike Twilight, it didn't just add totally stupid storylines into the mix (the killing vamp trio)and skim over the loves story. I actually fell in love with Jacob...if I hadn't read the books, I wouldn't even like Edward. The acting was better this time around, too. I think changing directors made all the difference. Looking forward to Eclipse!
im a twilight freak specially edward and bella.. i like twilight better.. the make-up in new moon really bothering me. i do blamed Chris Weitz..but then when i saw new moon 2nd time, i think lack of acting skill that make this movie hurt to watch. too cheesy.i must admit rob acting skill sumtime cheesy..same as taylor. what hurt me through my stomach is the disappointed overuse of 'white cream'..it make me watch through my fingers. twilight is better..and rosalie is far more beautiful in twilight..in new moon she looked terrible. felt sorry for nikki. AGRhhhhh
I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Who woudn't love twilight or new moon?It rocks.Keep making movies.I love the cast!Also keep rockin.