The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Chris Weitz, 2009) — The Reviews Thread

[The Bus]

Is there actually a thread for people who saw the movie?

Saw this on Saturday with my sister and her friends. I was originally interested in seeing Twilight because I knew of so many people (OK, girls and women) who were obsessed with it that I'd see it in theaters. Plus, I like vampires and I'm not so insecure to automatically bash romance films.

The first movie wasn't terrible (#36 out of 53 theatrically for 2008) and I sort of was engaged with the characters. If the whole series had ended after one film I wouldn't have been bothered.

Then, the New Moon trailer came out, and it looked like the movie was heading in the right direction (with the exception of the awful fan service clip), so I had some hope.

That's where it all went wrong. I had zero expectations for the first movie and thinking this one would be an improvement meant it was bound to disappoint me. And how it did. While the action sequences still worked (and were thankfully shaky-cam less for the most part) the story didn't. It was all set-up with absolutely no real conflict, no resolution, and a total men's shirt budget of maybe, maybe $50. By the end of the movie, I was starting to fall asleep and had lost almost all the goodwill towards the series. And it wasn't that much to begin with.

Fans have told me that the second book is the worst of the series. So far, the movie is as well.

[Superman07]

I didn't hate the first film, but it wasn't exactly good. I too thought the trailer for this one looked better (mind you not good). However, any action can't get past bad acting - specifically from the two leads. Talk about bad casting. Based on your feedback I won't ever bother to watch this on video.

Do yourself a favor and watch Vampire Diaries. It's easily 10x better than the first film, so I can only imagine it's even better than the second based on what you said.

[Rypro 525]

^I've never actually watched 'Vamp Diaries', since the premese seemed offputting, and like a CW version of Twilight. Maybe i ought to give it a chance, since i have been on a vampire kick recently

[MrSmearkase]

/\ I don't watch it myself, but I saw a commercial that the CW would be re-broadcasting the first 10 episodes, 2 per night, Monday December 14 - Friday December 18.

[Brack]

The first Twilight films had a lot to like, but much of it was thrown away by a rushed ending that didn't work compared with how it was dealt with in the book.

New Moon, however, corrects a lot of the mistakes of the first film, notably clunky character interactions, bad makeup, amateurish action scenes, etc. and turned this one into a much more enjoyable film with a better story. I'm not saying New Moon is the best of the books, but the boring parts were cut for a pretty effective supernatural soap opera. The acting was more than adequate. The characters finally feel like the characters from the book.

One thing that's really surprising is how funny the movie is. There are some genuine good laughs throughout what could be considered a more depressing story.

Overall it's a much better film than the first Twilight.

[superdeluxe]

Originally Posted by The Bus

Fans have told me that the second book is the worst of the series. So far, the movie is as well.

NM and BD I think tie or is up there as the worst 2 books.

[spammied]

I took my kids to go see it early Sat. morning. I liked the movie, thought it was better than the first. The first was rather dark, bleary....lots of blacks whites, grays where as NM had the colors added. I think they did a pretty good job of sticking to the book overall, and left out some of the drawn out boring parts. Action parts were great, and there were some good one-liners in there too.

We were ready to see it again after leaving the theater. But then again, I got the biggest kick out of seeing the kids so happy to see it on the big screen opening weekend. That was a treat in and of itself.

I've recommended it to my friends who are going to go with or without their kids LOL

[Brack]

Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott liked it.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/...id=51672076001

[Patman]

Moved from the "do you care" thread:

If one were to compare "New Moon" to "Twilight", I'd have to say "Twilight" is an emotional masterpiece if only for the interpersonal directorial touched imbued upon by Catherine Hardwicke. On the other hand, with Chris Weitz helming "New Moon", Weitz lacks subtlety in most of the scenes where characters actually talk to one another, and is hampered badly by the lack of acting chops by Taylor Lautner (Jacob) because any conversation Jacob has with Bella (Kristin Stewart) is agonizingly amatuerish and unconvincing, while practically any scene between Bella and Edward is haltingly stagnant in the way an unmovable mountain meets an irresistible force, it makes for uncompelling cinema.

If you've seen any of the marketing of the film, or seen the trailer, then what I'm about to reveal isn't all that new to you, so I'll go on that premise, so be forewarned if you've totally in the dark about the film. In a nutshell, Edward decides to leave Bella in order to protect her from his clan, although it's the last thing Bella wants. Bella gets depressed for months on end. Eventually she has an evening out with sarcastic Jessica, finds that the only thing that is helping her get out of her funk is adrenaline-inducing activities. From there, she seeks out Jacob for a project they can work on, and their relationship develops slowly until Jacob breaks off contact, and later on, it's revealed that Jacob is a werewolf, being one of the few in his family to bear the werewolf gene, along with others of his heritage.

Having 2 suitors turn their backs on Bella is almost too much for her to take, but Bella does find out about Jacob's secret, and then there's the rest of the movie that is long on drawn out chase scenes through the woods with Victoria in the mix, Bella's insecurities, Alice's visions, Edward's hole in his romantic heart through the forced separation he imposed. The last part of the film is just badly written and staged with a groan-inducing last line uttered by Edward.

With a running time of 130 minutes, director Weitz has turned it into a film that feels like it's 240 minutes long, I thought it was the equivalent of sitting down and watching molasses try to roll itself uphill. I think if you sped up the movie just a tad, run it at 1.5x speed, it might have helped the pacing, but the camerawork was odd, the progression of scenes edited was abrupt and full of bad choices, the cinematography was too clean compared to the grittier, grainier, colder tone in "Twilight".

I give it 1 star, or a grade of D.

[mdc3000]

I liked it a lot more than Twilight for 1 reason: It wasn't directed by Catherine Hardwicke. Weitz isn't the greatest director out there but he was such an improvement that this movie felt lightyears better than it's predecessor. Sure Pattinson is pretty terrible and weird looking, but there are some good moments here and there, the action parts are decent and it's light/harmless/entertaining enough that I didn't feel like it wasted my time. I could have used some more Sheen/Fanning but for what it was, I thought it was better than I expected. 3.5/5

[E. Honda]

I saw it on Saturday night. It was like watching a two-hour dramatization of a suicide note left by an emo teenager.