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Twilight New Moon: Ryan's Review

Review published by Ryan on 18th Nov 2009.
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This evening I was invited to attend the multimedia screening of Twilight: New Moon in London; the closest thing we're getting to a première in London this year. Although I am not the franchise's prototypical consumer, I have to admit that I found the film surprisingly enjoyable. Especially when one takes into consideration the momentous task of bringing a popular book to life, it's hard not to be impressed by the faithfulness of the onscreen narrative when compared to the source material. There is no doubt that Chris Weitz and Melissa Rosenberg did stellar jobs on this film, as did production design, VFX, wardrobe, and all the other crew.

Twilight: New Moon builds on the solid foundation laid by the first film, but now adds a more experienced director, better production values, and far more engaging cinematography. The improvements are salient, and all the elements come together to form a production that no Twilight fan can discount.

Although some might find certain characters annoying to watch for over two hours, they'd be hard pressed to find fault with the cast, who deliver all their material without fail. It's no surprise that there's some incredibly cringe worthy lines in the script, but considering the sappiness of the original books I think the team has done a great job adapting this cinematically. Another huge compliment can be paid to Alexandre Desplat. When one takes into account the popularity of Carter Burwell's original soundtrack, it's impressive that Desplat has managed to compose a better score which enriches and enlightens, dares and depresses — more on that in a later article.

If you are a fan of the series or if you enjoyed the first film then this move is a solid 8/10. For the rest of us it is a good 7/10.

Before you read this you should note that this review does contain spoilers. If you have not read the book, or wish to stay completely oblivious to the content of the Twilight: New Moon, please do not read further. For the rest of you, enjoy, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Run Through

As Twilight's credits started rolling we were left with a wholly happily dating Edward and Bella. New Moon kicks off with a dream where Bella realises that as a human, she'll get older, whilst Edward stays his eternal seventeen. She wakes up and finds, to her aversion, that it's her birthday. Dad gives her a camera and a photo album: “You go immortalise those memories kiddo” (no pun intended). Bella is clearly not too happy with all this unwanted attention but luckily at school there's Edward. Just to make it clear to everybody in the theatre that this is indeed Pattison in the undead flesh we get a nice little slo-mo as he walks from his sloppily parked Volvo XC60.

I have to note at this point that there are a few scenes and lines in the movie that will not appeal to anyone except the diehard Twilight fans. However, please look past those instances and enjoy the decent movie, which it actually happens to be.

As with the first film, the school scenes are solid, and Bella's school chums are believable, albeit a little flat. It's when Bella turns to Edward in the corridor and he tells her "You give me everything just by breathing" that the spell is broken a bit. During a literature class they watch Romeo & Juliet, and Edward confesses that he envies Romeo's ability to commit suicide. It's all a bit emo, but Alexandre Desplat's cues are incredibly good, and the scene does manage to hit some chords.

Alice has forced a birthday party upon Bella, so that evening at the Cullen's house she gets to hang out with the family. Things take a turn for the worse when Jasper (who has one funny line at the very end of the movie) tries to bite Bella when she cuts her finger. Everyone is terribly upset, and some days later Edward confronts Bella and announces that he and his family have to leave. It is during this scene that you realise that literally half the movie consists of close-ups.

Bella is upset. And, we don't like Bella when she's upset. Aside from screaming (loudly) in her sleep, all she does is mope around and write emails (from: bella.wa@me.com) to Alice, which never arrive. Basically she uses her sartorially-minded golden-eyed BFF as Livejournal: not the best way to make friends. It is a smart move by screenwriter Rosenberg to adapt all Bella's monologues in the book.

Dad is about to deport her back to mom so she decides to take her friend Jessica to the movies to make it look like she has a social life. Anna Kendrick totally steals the show with an amazing rant on how she doesn't get zombie films. Is it an allegory for leprosy? "That's not funny!" Or consumerism? "Hey, some people just like to shop!"

Deus ex machina, and all of sudden Edward pops up, warning Bella to stay away from the group of bikers next to the cinema: our heroine deduces that to get this rush she needs to put herself in danger. Thus she begins scheming on how best to bring about this adrenalin high. This leads her to approach Jacob, who's not only a wiz with mechanics, but has also totally buffed up. "Aren't you sixteen?" an incredulous Bella comments, to which the man of the hour replies "Age is just a number, aren't you like... 40?" Ouch.

Jacob and Bella totally bond; apparently there's no better way to woo a girl than with pizza and motor oil. However, things get awkward when Bella gets on her bike for the first time and sees... (drum roll) Edward. As she punches the gas he keeps appearing until she loses control and crashes. The next thing we see is dashing young Taylor Lautner is taking his shirt off (cue whistles from the female viewers) and drying the blood on her face. "You're sorta beautiful," she says, prompting him to wisely inquire about the state of her cognitive faculty.

After another high school scene where one of her chums tries to hit on her (FAIL) we find Bella and Jacob in the cinema. Just as they're properly commencing with the talk — i.e. "I need you!" and "I won't ever do [what Edward did]" — we're interrupted by high school boy, who's pretty much given up on getting with Bella at this point, and after threatening to beat him up Taylor runs off. A few days later and Bella's calls still aren't being returned, so she goes to his house, where she finds him acting all evasive. This is one of those proper rainy, emotional, abandonment scenes so be prepared. "You can't break up with me!"..."Go home Bella."

Things get creepy when she runs into that baddie vampire Laurent in very same meadow that she keeps dreaming about. He tells her he owes it to Victoria to kill her, after all, Edward & co killed her boyfriend. Fair enough. Just as Bella is about to let herself get killed she gets rescued by wolves, who proceed to beat the living daylights out of Laurent. The wolf pack is beautifully animated by VFX supervisor Susan Macleod's team, who previously worked with Weitz on The Golden Compass.

When Bella is at home Jacob suddenly drops by, explaining that although he is honour bound not to discuss the details of his mysterious behaviour, he has once told her a helpful story. Now skip back to the previous movie: recall that local legend Taylor told her about as they walked on the beach? It takes Kristen the whole night to figure this out, so by morning she storms into Jacob's house, confronting him about his secret.

Through the window she sees the fellow wolves in human guise approaching, and she ends up slapping Paul, clearly upset that her wannabe boyfriend isn't as normal as she'd hoped. Again viewers are treated to some splendid CGI, with teeth snapping and clumps of grass flying everywhere, as Jacob protects Bella from Paul's rough handed riposte. After the fight they all make good over some muffins, leading to one character's deadpan response: "Guess the wolf's out of the bag."

With all the sightings of wolves Bella's dad gets a group of able bodied men together to hunt down the beasts. Harry Clearwater has no choice but to come along with officer Swan, despite knowing full well what those wolves truly are. During their tracking Victoria swings down from a tree and attacks him; Jacob comes tearing through the woods and knocks her away, but rescue sadly comes too late for the tribal elder.

Victoria is being hounded by the wolf pack and forced to jump from the cliffs; the very same precipice that Bella is standing on. Longing for Edward and her friend Jacob she feels she's lost, she dives into the churning water. Slamming her head into a rock she loses consciousness, and slowly she drifts into the arms of Edward’s ethereal doppelganger. At that moment an arm reaches in and pulls her up. Back on the beach Taylor gives her some awkward CPR and the pair head home.

Smelling vampire, Jacob refuses to go into the house, leaving Bella to tear herself away as she recognizes Carlisle's car. Intro Alice, who looks dashing wearing the latest in quirky bloodsucker chic. She explains that she saw Bella dying, and wanted to confirm her vision. Upon smelling Jacob she remarks that it's thanks to the mutts that her clairvoyance fogs up. When Jacob comes in to check up on her she sends Alice outside, and they once again try to have the talk.

Luckily for Team Edwardians the phone rings just as they are about to kiss, and Jacob answers the phone with the words "Mr Swan's not in, he's preparing a funeral." Oh snap. That confirms Edward's suspicion that Bella's dead, just as Rosalie gave away when she told him about Alice's vision. Alice now storms back in, declaring that Edward is planning to get himself killed by the Volturi, the ancient vampire family that governs the world of the glitterskins.

Off to Italy, right after a heated discussion with Jacob and a note to dad. Enjoy the blatant Virgin Atlantic advertising, and the burning question "Wait, Virgin have flights from Seattle to Pisa?" In Italy we see Alice & Bella racing in a yellow Porsche, nicely contrasting with all the red cloaks of the worshippers who have come out for St Marc(us)'s day in Volterra. In Alice's words, they celebrate that the vampires got thrown out of town.

Considering The Volturi have refused to kill Edward, he plans to reveal himself on the square at noon. After all, who wouldn't notice a semi naked glittering Robert Pattison in the middle of some supposedly Catholic festival? Luckily Bella gets to him just in time and throws her arms around him to shield him from the sunlight. The door closes as Alice slips in, and two of the lead Volturi's henchmen are instructed to bring our protagonists to Aro: when they take too long a really creepy Dakota Fanning shows up, also known as Jane.

There is a wonderful elevator scene where we see everyone squished together looking uncomfortable, whilst some muzak aria plays in the background. Bella is then introduced to the Volturi who seem very interested in Bella, mainly because none of their special powers work on her. Seeing how Bella knows a little more than she's supposed to, the Volturi contemplate killing her, leading to some well choreographed fighting. Luckily Alice saves the day by declaring that she's seen Bella as a vampire in her visions, so there turns out to be no need to dispose of her.

Sadly I have to point out that the flashforward that Aro sees when he reads Alice's mind is so awful that it elicited nothing but laughter from the audience, although I can not imagine that was the filmmakers' intent. If there was one painful moment I could cut out of this film that would be it. For your own sakes, look away.

Just as B, E, & A leave the Volturi's palace you see a group of tourists being lead into the chamber, as the screen cuts away you can just hear their screams echoing out as they get slaughtered... screams which ring in Bella's ears when she wakes up at home to find herself with Edward once again. After a stern talking to by her dad (no more city trips young girl!) Bella forces Edward's hand by rushing off to the Cullens, where she asks the family to vote on whether she should become a vampire or not. In any interesting move, only Rosalie stands by Edward, all the rest vote for Bella’s change.

The next day as Bella and Edward are driving they run into Jacob, who tries to talk Bella out of this vampire nonsense. Edward and Jacob nearly get into a fight, until Miss Swan states that by hurting each other they're hurting her. Being true gentlemen, they immediately cease their fighting, and Jacob flees the scene. Edward turns to Bella, and promises to acquiesce to her demands, uttering those immortal words...

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