New Moon Movie Review

Last year I had many of my female readers all atwitter when I recommended they run, not walk, to pick up copies of the Twilight saga. We were all transported back to our teenage days when the thought of a mysterious, dangerous, and handsome boy in school would send us swooning. And though some people dismiss the Twilight books as literary fluff, I give major kudos to Stephenie Meyer. As a writer mom, I know how hard it is to find the time to sit down and finish something and it was a pretty good idea to boot.

Before going to see a movie based on a series of books, I’ll usually re-read the books to refresh my memory. Between school, the kids, and working part-time, I didn’t have the time to read New Moon again before opening night. This turned out to be a good thing. There were tidbits I’d forgotten and it made the story fresh to me.

I remember reading one of the opening scenes of New Moon while Donny drove and Kali sat in the backseat. I closed the book to tell them about the part where Bella got a paper cut at the birthday party. Twilight the movie wasn’t out yet and Kali asked if I thought New Moon would be a movie as well.  We both agreed that it would be pretty cool to see such a scene play out on the big screen.

But what should have been terrifying – a simple paper cut sets off a chain of events that finds a human girl nursing a bleeding arm in a room full of vampires – was actually comical. I blame two things. One, the actor playing Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) is horrible. Every time he’s supposed to look like he’s repressing the urge to kill Bella (Kristen Stewart), he looks more like someone that has to take a really bad poop and can’t.

"Anyone got any Metamucil?"

Two, vampires need fangs!

Maybe Stephenie Meyer made her vamps fangless to be different, but let’s face it: a lot of the story behind the series has been done before. You’re not reinventing the wheel. Give those vampires fangs! Without them, whenever Edward and the gang bear their teeth to attack, it looks less menacing and more, “Do I have something in my teeth?” Can you imagine if she’d decided to take away the werewolves’ fur or claws? Thank you.

I was curious to see how the lack of Edward (Robert Pattinson) would be handled in this film. The movie runs over two hours and he’s in about 10-15 minutes total. After the paper cut incident (God, that sounds so damn dumb), Edward decides that it would be best if he and his vamp peeps leave town. He worries that he will cause Bella more harm than good. Nevermind the fact that Bella’s at the top of a homicidal vampire’s (redundant?) shit list, he thinks it’s best if he puts some distance between them. Knowing that Bella would pretty much lose her shit, he decides to make her think he doesn’t want to be with her anymore which makes her… you guessed it, lose her shit.

From the trailers, it looked as if Bella was spending many nights in bed writhing in pain and yelling over the breakup. And though I’m not one of those parents that feel it’s the responsibility of  TV, movies, celebrities, etc. to set examples for my daughter, there was a part of me that wanted to smack her and yell, “Man up!” And due to some bad direction, the first time we see Bella in bed screaming after the breakup, most of the girls in the audience groaned. It wasn’t until the second time it happened that we learned she was actually suffering from bad dreams, hence the screaming and twisting and turning.

Still, Bella spends the majority of the movie looking for new ways to engage in dangerous behavior because it’s the only way she can “see” Edward. His image and voice serve as a kind of Jiminy Cricket warning her not to go off with white trash strangers and jump off cliffs. I’ve long said that I don’t think Kristen Stewart can act and the first 20 minutes of the film didn’t change my mind. Then a miraculous thing happened…

Jacob (Taylor Lautner) became of the focus and suddenly there was chemistry, there was an actual love story and actual acting! When reading the books, I was totally Team Edward. Now? Not so much. I actually think Taylor Lautner made Kristen Stewart a better actor. At the very least, he made her tolerable. Unfortunately for Mrs. Meyer, Taylor made it so that anyone with a brain and functioning libibo has a hard time wondering how the hell Bella could pick Edward over Jacob. Also, unfortunately for Mr. Pattinson, he removes his shirt at the end of the film after Taylor spent the majority of it looking all kinds of right with his shirt off. I’m just sayin’.

The special effects were a vast improvemnet from Twilight. The silliness of Edward going all sparkly like he spent an afternoon in Libby Lu is forgiven any time Jacob or one of his clan wolfs out. There was some very bad dialogue and scenes that didn’t make any sense. Like when after Jacob realizes what he is and what the Cullens are, he lashes out to Bella for loving the bloodsuckers. But later when he wants to tell her about himself, he asks, “Have you ever had a secret that you couldn’t tell anyone?” Um, yeah. Didn’t we already cover that she has?

In a recent interview with Oprah, Stephenie Meyer confessed that it was her mother who suggested she add some kind of action to the original ending of Twilight… and it shows. If there’s one area where the all of the books fail, it’s the climax. The pacing is pretty good throughout each one, but suddenly it’s as if Meyer realizes she needs a big ending so she starts tossing in imminent danger, plane rides, and lots of running. It all feels both forced and jarring. New Moon only handles this slightly better than the Twilight film did.

When the Volturi come on screen I realize that Twilight suffers from the same problem as True Blood and Grey’s Anatomy: the supporting characters (Lafayette, Eric, Jessica/McSteamy, Callie, Izzy/Jacob, Volturi, Rosalie) are more interesting and compelling than the main ones we’re supposed to care about (Bill and Sookie/Meredith and Derrick/Edward and Bella.)

And again, things that end up working better on the screen only reminds those of us that have read the books how much better the books could have been. The Volturi in the film are awesome…

Except for this guy:

If Jasper looks constantly constipated, this guy suffered the bubble guts. Why did he look so stressed all the damn time?

… but it doesn’t matter how awesome they were. Their roles are small in the upcoming films and we don’t see them again till the end of Breaking Dawn during that drawn-out battle that falls flat. Then again, what does Meyer care? The books have already been written and made her buttload of money.

New Moon is head and shoulders above Twilight as a film. The action is better paced and the ending was spot-on. It left me, and all the tweens, atwitter and counting down to the Eclipse premiere.

Going to see New Moon opening night inspired this blog.

Twilight Movie Review

If you liked the book, you’ll love the movie.

If you loved the book, you’ll really love the movie.

I really loved the movie.

Sue me.

I almost didn’t go. It occured to me the other day that I had seen a trailer for the movie (the whole stopping the van with his hand scene) before I’d even heard of the books and it wasn’t something I would normally pay to see. Also, I really didn’t want to be disappointed and for someone who usually doesn’t let critics sway her opinion, the negative buzz was starting to affect me. I’d only pumped a few ounces of breastmilk for Jack and didn’t want to think about my baby starving while Mommy went to get her Cullen on. I’d already told my 19 year old cousin Jaden that we’d be going so I prettied myself up for an afternoon out.

Before picking Jaden up I stopped at Krogers for some candy to smuggle in to the theater (don’t judge me) and since I pass the theater on the way to her house, I stopped to get our tickets so they wouldn’t be sold out. As I waited in line I noticed the two white girls purchasing tickets in the line next to me. They asked for two tickets to the 2pm showing of Twilight. I felt better about myself ’cause at first glance they seemed a lot older than teenagers. Then I noticed one returned her debit card to a velvet Crown Royal bag and realized how juvenile she must be. I turned my attention to the black couple purchasing tickets in front of me – also for the 2pm Twilight. I tapped the sistah on the arm.

“How’d you get him to come with you to see this?”

She smiled. “He wanted to see it. He’ll see anything.”

The brother turned to look at me as he put their tickets in his wallet, “I love going to the movies.”

I purchased tickets for the 2:50 show and left to get Jaden. She hadn’t read the books, but was curious to see what the fuss was about. I told her that I had enough candy in my purse to put us in a diabetic coma and we were off.

As we settled in to watch the trailers I tried not to think about the fact that I was probably the only female viewing this movie who was also lactating. Jaden and I made a date to see the Will Smith flick, “Seven Pounds” together and the movie began..

Twilight is the story of Bella Swan, a 16 year old high school junior who moves to Forks, Washington (the rainiest, cloudiest, most sun deprived city in North America) to live with her father so that her mother can travel with her new husband, a minor league baseball player. Just as Bella is settling in to life with her police chief father, she meets Edward Cullen. Edward is brooding, goregous, and pale.

Turns out, Edward and his “adoptive” parents and siblings are all centuries old vampires. What follows is the usual “I love you, but we can’t be together… or can we” storyline.

I’m going to write this with the assumption that some, if not most, of you have read the book. I know that upon my recommendation many of you got the first book in the four part series…

I was one of those readers that wasn’t feeling Robert Pattinson as Edward at all. Even when the movie started, I still didn’t like him. It wasn’t until, after being peculiarly hostile to Bella when they first meet, that he properly introduced himself that I “got it.” The 16 year old inside me sighed… and melted just a tad. But I’m getting slightly ahead of myself.

Forks looked exactly as I pictured it, though I thought Chief Swan’s house looked a lot better than I’d imagined. I love the fact that they diversified the cast a bit by making one character black – that was white in the book – and another Asian. I found all of them extremely likable… even Jessica who readers learn turns out to be a bit of a bitch. The introduction to the Cullen “kids” was perfect. In the book, they’re already seated at a cafeteria table when Bella notices the gorgeous, pale, quintet, but because this is a movie a more dramatic entrance was required. And we were treated to a bitchwalk. (I’ll be blogging about bitchwalks with Tralfaz soon.)

When I read the books, before I knew the cast of the movie, I’d always pictured someone like Katherine Heigl as Rosalie mainly because her standoffish attitude was very similiar to that of Heigl’s character, Isabelle, on the canceled show Roswell. But, I must say, Nikki Reid did Rosalie Hale justice.

Alice was perfect (more on her in a bit) and though I agree with the “look” of the actors picked to play Jasper and Emmett, I had small issues with their performances. Jasper is the newest member of the Cullen clan, who do not feed on humans, and as such he has the hardest time being around humans and controlling his natural desires. This should play across his face from time to time, but all I got from the actor was the panicked look of someone thisclose to shitting their pants. Emmett, who is tough, boisterous, egotiscal, and strong, only displayed the characteristics a fraction of the time. Other times he came off as a bit wiggerish.

Yesterday I looked at a video clip Chrissa had posted in her blog from her first time seeing the movie. It’s the scene where Bella first sits next to Edward in biology class and his hostile behavior leaves her bewildered. We later learn that he was having a strong, never felt before, reaction to her scent and was fighting the urge to feed off of her, to kill her. But she doesn’t know that. When I watched the clip from Chrissa’s blog, it played as comedy. People, including Chrissa, could be heard snickering as Edward eyed an uncomfortable, squirming Bella. I thought, this is a bad sign. People shouldn’t be laughing, should they?

Then I happened to flip through the book before going to see the movie and came across that part. I’d forgotten that in reaction to the looks of disdain on Edward’s face, Bella took a quick whiff of her hair to see if maybe she smelled bad. The scene was meant to be funny. Meyer’s had written it that way. When watching the movie for myself and able to see the clip in full, I noted that Bella walking by the fan sent her scent across the room to Edward, setting off his preternatural urges. It was funny watching her squirm thinking, “What is his problem? Do I stink? Is there a booger in my nose?” I found I wasn’t laughing at the movie, but with it.

The early introduction of Jacob was surprising, but necessary, as were the random murders throughout the movie. I thought it made the climax, which felt rushed in the book, more realistic in the movie. We know James, Laurent, and Victoria are coming. The Cullens do not. I wasn’t feeling Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black either, until I saw him as Jacob. I do think, though, he’ll have to eat lots of spinach to pull of Jacob in the later movies.

I really couldn’t think of too much that was left out of the book except maybe the several days of Q&A as Edward and Bella got to know each other, though they did touch on that a little as they did the nighttime chat montage. Whatever was left out wasn’t missed by me so I have no complaints. Although, I would have liked to see a scene where he disappears from her bedroom because he can hear Charlie coming well before she could, but they made up for that by his reaction outside her house when Jacob and his father, Billy, were driving up.

When Bella realizes what Edward is the confrontation scene the next day was very well done. When she sees him across campus, approaches, but continues to walk by him without saying a word he silently follows. No need to say, “We need to talk.” He knew what was up. Everything that followed was both sexy and scary.

I read some complaints about the special effects, but I didn’t see a problem. Where were the areas that people found this lacking? There really didn’t seem to be much of a need for anything too extravagant. One thing I did note was the absence of fangs. Is it just me or were there no fangs in this vampire flick? Jaden had one of several very funny lines tonight as we pulled into her driveway still gushing over what we’d just seen.

“When he was in the sunlight I expected him to burn, but they really were marketing this to teenage girls – he glittered!”

I enjoyed everything from the restaurant scene to Bella’s relationship with Charlie going from uneasy to comfortable. He’s not as I pictured him, but Charlie had some great lines as well. “I put another pepper spray in your bag.” And I found that where the books made Bella too clumsy at times the movies gave her just the right amount of awkwardness.

The baseball game was something I was really looking forward to seeing on the big screen and it didn’t disappoint. It was another way for the movie to display the personalities of the other Cullens who had relatively small roles in this film but remain such large characters for those who have read the series. And I mentioned earlier, because we’d gotten a taste of the danger James and company represented throughout the film, the final confrontation didn’t seem as rushed and forced as it did in the book.

My favorite part of the final battle is when Alice, Emmett, Jasper, and Carlisle arrive to help with James. Not to give anything away, but I loved seeing the vicious side of Alice. I leaned over to Jaden, “Damn. Alice ain’t no joke.”

I loved how excited Jaden was at the end of the movie.

“Nooo, they can’t end it like that! Now I have to read the books.”

And so we headed to my house so she could borrow my copy of Twilight and I could nurse Jack whose starving image invaded my paranoid mind several times throughout the film. Note: He took to the pumped breastmilk via a bottle just fine which means more girls’ night out to the movies for me and Jaden.
I loved, loved, loved, this movie. I thought it remained surprisingly true to the book. Was just the right length though I wouldn’t have minded more. The acting was decent – I thought sometimes Edward was a little too wide eyed, but enjoyed the subtle scenes for those of us who have read the books like when he tries to move and behave human as he nervously waits with Charlie for Bella on prom night. I cringed at Bella’s delivery of this line, “What is going on?” as she and Edward pulled up to a bunch of police cars. Normal people say, “What’s going on?” Jaden and I each had a, “Well, hello there” moment when Carlisle first pushed through the double doors at the hospital. I’d forgotten about him and Esme (another casting I didn’t agree with until I actually saw it) up until that point.

I wanted to see more Cullens, but I know that there will be time for that in the next movies as I’ve read the books and I know how their stories unfold.

It’s not gonna win any Oscars, but it will delight fans of the book. As Jaden summed up perfectly on the way to my house, “I can see why people were so addicted. It’s like Pokemon for girls!”