The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)
Directed by Chris Weitz
Forks, Washington resident Bella Swan is reeling from the departure of her vampire love, Edward Cullen, and finds comfort in her friendship with Jacob Black, a werewolf. But before she knows it, she's thrust into a centuries-old conflict, and her desire to be with Edward at any cost leads her to take greater and greater risks.
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19 films that influenced The Twilight Saga: New Moon
What critics say influenced The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The parallels that can be drawn to "Romeo and Juliet" are more in evidence this time around.
Sadly, much of what I enjoyed about the first movie seems missing in the overly depressing follow-up film, which comes across like Romeo and Juliet on extra downers.
Scenes where Bella and Edward sit through a class covering Romeo and Juliet act like a subtle wink to adults in the audience: Yes we know this is a bit overly dramatic and self-important, but, as even Shakespeare recognized, so are teenagers.
Enjoying all of New Moon 's 130-minute running time (as I did, well enough) takes the ability to swoon and snort simultaneously—say, when a fantasy Bella runs through the woods in gray chiffon, or Edward recites the closing lines of Romeo and Juliet by heart.
Bella is crushed and spends the next few months (signified by arguably the most unintentionally hilarious moment in a film chock-full of them), weeping herself to sleep, trembling like a withdrawing heroin addict and acting even more anti-social than usual until she begins spending more and more quality time with Jake (Taylor Lautner), her newly buff and often shirtless best pal who, it turns out, is also a werewolf (though easily the least threatening one to appear on the big screen since Jason Bateman suited up for “Teen Wolf Too“).
An Oscar pedigree is provided by actor Graham Greene ("Dances with Wolves") who has a small role as the sheriff's deputy, Harry Clearwater.
The movie, directed by Chris Weitz, comes off very much like Clint Eastwoods The Bridges of Madison Countyprofessional filmmaking applied to sub-literary euphemistic trash, in this case couched in the jejune crush-fantasies of a Mormon mom stranded at home with three little boys.
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The malevolent leader of this Italian faction is Aro (Michael Sheen from "Frost/Nixon" and "The Queen") and his menacing minion is Jane (a nearly unrecognizable Dakota Fanning from "The Secret Life of Bees" and "War of the Worlds").
There is a brush with the vampire ruling class - featuring cameo appearances from Dakota Fanning, as a malevolent, blank-faced vampire girl, and Michael Sheen (recently seen as Tony Blair in The Queen ) as a suave vampire authority figure.
Not until Michael Sheen, of "Frost/Nixon" and "The Queen," makes an appearance as the vampire pope - a cross between Count Dooku and Voldemort, with Dakota Fanning in a small role as his sidekick - does the gloomy and lethargic film show any bite.
I enjoyed it when everyone quit overcast Washington State and surried on over to Tuscany to confront a sect of ancient Italian vampires led by Michael Sheen (switching sides after playing a werewolf in the Underworld trilogy) who looks like a bloodsucking Mr Bean.
Dakota Fanning, all grown up, is seriously creepy with only about four lines as one of the Volturi, the ancient vampire ruling council (or whatever), and Michael Sheen (who gained valuable vampire/werewolf experience in the Underworld movies) hams it up delightfully as the group’s malevolent leader.
I won't go as far as to say Taylor Lautner is a good actor, but he's an improvement over Robert Pattinson, who attempts to impersonate Bela Lugosi from Plan 9 from Outer Space.
After he dumps her (for reasons I can't be bothered to go into - honestly, you have to see the film) the camera revolves around her as she broods in her bedroom and the seasons change outside; it's like that bit in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant walks through Portobello Road market, the modern equivalent of pages peeling off a calendar to represent the passage of time, but I'm afraid it left me wondering how she'd stayed in that position for three months without needing to get up and go to the toilet.
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These are hardly superlatives on the order of “shattering” and “beautiful,” but compared to the film versions of “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons,” the only two movies ever made with less sex than the first two “Twilight"s, they’re matchless.
So, I’m willing to give Weitz points if he really did intend for audiences to see a riff on West Side Story — you know, the Broadway musical based on R&J — with that half-naked Native American gang in the woods.