Originally Posted By A. Monnie Aleahmad

So I finally bit the bullet and watched The Twilight Saga: New Moon. I have to say, it was a decent enough film. A bit over dramatic, but still better than the first. It’s a simple romance story of an obsessed teenage girl abandoned by her lover and trying to cope with an all too mundane real world. Once you have a taste of the extraordinary, how can you go back to the lame real world?


It is a simple story, but there is something to be said about its simplicity. It is straightforward and sad. Bella (Kristen Stewart) is a character to be pitied. The relationships and the love triangle involved are devastatingly simple. This is good because the characters’ actions never seem forced this way and all their choices make sense. The plot itself isn’t very deep, but there is much subtlety that can be read into and can mean as much as you would like it to. The acting is a slight improvement from the first installment in the series as well, which is always a plus. The character of Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is by far the most interesting and well written character in the film. Jacob and Bella’s father, Charlie Swan (Billy Burke), added much needed heart, warmth and humanity to the film.

Other than the story and acting, the visuals in this film took a step forward. The first thing we see as the film opens is a full harvest moon slowly waxing from full moon to new moon with the letters of the title New Moon slowly being revealed, that was undeniably cool and filled lots of meaning, depending how you want to analyze it. Also notable were some very nice slow-mo action sequences that were well thought out and exciting even. The CGI wasn’t the greatest as the wolves never truly achieved that realism of say King Kong, but it was fitting and got the job done. Also, New Moon, unlike the first, doesn’t look like the whole movie was shot under water. I don’t know what they were thinking with that strange blue filter throughout the first film. It does still remain stylized and established an otherworldly tone.

One place they hit a home run with this film is the soundtrack. There is great, moving music from many established musicians and some awesome indie bands. They were well placed throughout the film and aided the emotional core of the scenes with masterful effortlessness.

At its core, Twilight: New Moon is a tween drama of love, lust and loss, with a supernatural twist in-order to justify the irrationally high drama. Of coarse, the film is overdone and over-hyped, and also not the best example of a healthy relationship for the youth that the film inspires, but as films go, not too shabby. I give it 3 1/2 pitchforks.

What do I really think? Let me first say that without Jacob and Bella’s father this film would’ve been unbearable. The acting, though a slight improvement, is still tragic. It all falls on Bella’s shoulders, and Kristen Stewart just isn’t a talented enough actress for the task of bringing substance into a character that isn’t written well enough to have any. Not yet anyways. Bella herself is really annoying. She is a very weak and needy person and a terrible role model for young girls. All of this does make her real in a sense because She makes mistakes. She constantly needs to be saved and is thrusting herself into danger because of her poor judgment. She’s like that crazy obsessive girlfriend that threatened to kill herself if you ever left her. Why would any normal person want to be with her? Oh yeah, these people aren’t normal. That makes it ok, right? Hell no! The plot is thin and lame at that. I did like much of the cinematography and the music, but beyond that, I can’t say that this is anything special.