Seeing the sequel to the number one teen vampire romance set in rural Washington isn’t my top pick in movies of late 2009, but in the first 15 minutes of “New Moon,” we see a vampire get his head twisted off, so maybe it’s not a total wash.
We learn that a seemingly minor character in the first movie turn out to be a werewolf, which means that a minor character in this movie will turn out to be either Frankenstein or the mummy in the inevitable sequel, “Eclipse.”
When the movie opens, vampire groupie Bella learns that a paper cut and a room full of bloodsuckers aren’t exactly the best sort of guests you want at your birthday party. This head-slapping realization causes vampire/creepy-91-year-old-man Edward to ditch the clingy high-schooler for Buenos Aires.
Instead of moving on with her life and dating less-dangerous creatures of the night, she spends three months sitting in a chair contemplating her role as mayor of Dumpsville.
But as the dreamy (I’m told) Robert Pattinson is the cash cow for this franchise, he logs most of his screen time as an Obi-Wan Kenobi–type presence who constantly appears to Bella to warn her that getting on the back of a lowlife’s motorcycle of jumping off a cliff are bad life decisions.
With the addition of the new werewolf character and love triangle subplot, we reduce the number of unintentionally funny “emoting” faces made by the two main characters as seen in “Twilight” by about third. But don’t worry, “Twilight Saga” fans, there’s still plenty of footage of Edward and Bella auditioning for that coveted role in an Ex-Lax commercial. That said, “New Moon” is an improvement in most ways beyond its predecessor. (Admittedly, this is this is the only book in the series that I have read in its entirety, so the previous sentence probably validates this fact.)
Only the most oblivious viewer could fail to notice the biggest change between this movie and “Twilight”: the lack of shirts for most of the male characters. This was done no doubt to satisfy both the prepubescent female fan and the fact these shirtless characters are all werewolves and therefore have little need for post-transition clothing.
The fact that they shred any type of material when they change into gigantic wolves (no, they aren’t wolfmen) brings up an argument usually reserved for the pages of the Incredible Hulk. OK, they ruin their shirts, but why are they running around in human form wearing just pants?
For the money saved on shirts, “New Moon” was able to attract A-list stars like Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen, seen here playing against type where he is neither a werewolf or Tony Blair, though here he is something of the vampire prime minister.
The world of vampires and werewolves is not that different from our own. Their movies are drippily titled “Love Spelled Backward is Love.” Or they have names like “Face Punch.”
Now there’s a movie I’d rather be watching.
Side note: At one point in “New Moon” Charlie, Bella’s police chief dad, is watching a football game on TV between the Arizona Wildcats and the Washington State Cougars. The funny thing about this isn’t its place in a movie that probably doesn’t appeal directly to fans of Pac-10 football, its that the game is at least 10 years old (judging by Arizona’s blue jersey and white helmet uniform). I’ve seen this movie twice and I still can’t tell you what else goes on in this scene since I’m always trying to figure out why Charlie is watching a game that a) is not broadcast on ESPN Classic and b) why they would be broadcasting any way if he was; both teams didn’t have outstanding seasons when the game aired.









