The Twilight Saga New Moon! - A review.

Hi and welcome to Discussions with Annie!

It’s Saturday and it’s raining…and I’m depressed. No not because it’s a rainy Saturday, that’s life and life is something you roar at and say -  ” Come on, give me your best shot “.  No I’m depressed because I saw the New Moon movie last night and I was angry when I left the theatre. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. But first, let’s hear what other people thought of the movie. Check out the links below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS5vdSMhHvs Some U.S kids review the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Haq1DD8k4I A more organised review.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/moviereviews A fantastic review of New Moon.

Now the theatre I went to was full. Not a spare seat in the house for any screen showing New Moon. I was surprised to see a large group of teenage boys taking their seats in front of me, but …ya know…school project maybe, or a dare.  Or they could have read the books. I wanted to ask them afterwards but they left quickly. The mood was excited as we all settled down to watch the movie. When it was over however , everyone was subdued and you didn’t have to be Edward Cullen to know what everyone was thinking. This movie was not what they expected. Summit Entertainment pulled out all the stops in every commercial way possible to get the fans into a spending frenzy. They promised a collective masterpiece but delivered fragmented mediocrity. I said months ago that New Moon will make more than Twilight and it probably will, but…was the end result worth the price of the ticket?

                 To be fair I should point out to any new and welcome visitors to my page, that this is my 120th article on Twilight related matters and I might have Twilight flu right about now. Also my opinion comes from the point of view of a lifetime movie fan who discusses the merits of movies and TV shows a lot. When I say our house is full of movies I’m being literal. I guess what I’m really saying is, I think I know what I’m talking about. Or at least I have an opinion.

ACTING: I will get to the point. The acting was terrible. Taylor Lautner of course could be forgiven for this because he is new to acting and for such a disciplined young man, emotions might be a struggle. No doubt he will get acting lessons because he works hard and doesn’t like failing. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were equally bad. Good actors draw from their own experiences however difficult to revisit. Really great actors know themselves very well, are well researched and have in spades a little thing called ‘talent’.  Not looks, not chiseled abs, (although in this shallow world they don’t seem to hurt a career) but raw talent. Marlon Brando reeked of raw unrefined talent. Others learned it and became masters. But let’s move on. The main acting was bad relieved only by the seeping malice of Aro played by Michael Sheen to perfection and the under utilised talents of Dakota Fanning, Billy Burke, Anna Kendrick, Chaske Spencer and so on. Michael Sheen (below left) was a joy to watch compared to the three main stars. 

DIRECTING: Director Chris Weitz (right)should retire as he’s often threatened to do and read more books (ref: article in NYdailynews.com). I liked The Golden Compass but thought the ending was rubbish. He blamed the interference of studios heads for that,  (Ref: same article). About a boy was about his best work. He had no clue how to direct this adaptation of the second book. Sure, he was laid back and everyone loved him but sometimes you have to fight for your vision (provided you had one in the first place) and drag, kicking and screaming, the best out of the actors. For directing New Moon 5/10. For having anything to do with the editing of the movie - zero. Time to wax that surf board Chris, no offence intended.

SCREENPLAY: Now Melissa Rosenberg (right) wrote the screenplay for all the Twilight Saga movies so far. Whilst I had no beef with the first one (mainly because I saw it as a standalone movie first and to comment now would be unfair)  I think she should have stuck to the second book more closely. As for changing the dialogue - I hate that. How can the fans make this plain to Melissa Rosenberg?. We love the books, the prose, the dialogue…”Don’t change the words“. Leave stuff out if you must but make sure it doesn’t detract from the flow of the story but “Don’t change the words”. Write your own book if you want but don’t take away from a beautiful story by putting words in the characters mouths that they wouldn’t normally say. Script 5/10.

CGI: Oh boy! do I have a problem with CGI. The wolves with human eyes…backfired! They look far more menacing with their beautiful yellow eyes. However author Stephenie Meyer does give Jacob Wolf black eyes. If I were to change anything of Stephenie’s well crafted work it would be just that one thing. You know by the colour of the coat which wolf is which. The “Paul wolf” was ok but wolves don’t lift their paws as if begging for food like a dog. Your talking about a super predator here. Intelligent, organised, social, super senses and that teeny tiny fact that they split up and can run you into the ground over many miles and hours. No other predator has that stamina. Yeah, I like wolves, they’re all over my pc. When I saw the two yellow points of light in the trees and the steam from the wolf’s breath I thought, oh boy this is going to be good. But I was disappointed. They fought and ran, not like wolves but dogs or cats. The CGI movements didn’t ring true and were so fast you could hide a plethora of mistakes in there and probably did. I know CGI is hard work but immensely rewarding when you get it right. I felt it wasn’t right.

The Music: - didn’t fit at all, unlike Twilight which was absolutely perfect, the whole film was fragmented to hell and back. Nothing ran smoothly and the ending was awful. I repeat..I am a Twilight fan, I loved the books and read them each three times. I loved the Twilight movie. I thought Robert and Kristen couldn’t act but that Taylor was ok, and so was the rest of the cast. Kudos to Catherine Hardwicke. I enjoyed it. Taylor’s “whole ‘nother notch’ in terms of acting in New Moon was not reached but he is new to movies so I will be forgiving. Work harder on your acting TL, your abs are just fine. Yeah, I’m still Team Jacob!

The Cullen vampire eyes were much better the old way. You could relate to them, not like this movie where they are distant, even lovable Emmett seems wrong. “Worst acting ever”, the girl next to me said. I agree, sadly I do. No, I’m not an idiot, I know the feel of New Moon is different, as is Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. That does not excuse the bad acting, directing, bad sets - ( The meadow was a soggy hay bed and the flowers in Bella’s meadow were stuck down iris’s for God’s sake. They made millions and you couldn’t get someone to design a decent set.

I’m sorry if I offended any Twi fans. You have been kind about my work and good company but this is how I feel and I think you deserved better for your loyalty. Yeah I know…”It’s just a movie”. Gettin’ p*****d off about it won’t save the ozone layer or one single child. But still…Let me know what you guys think !

Take care,   Annie.