New Moon (2009)

O Masterpiece

O Excellent

O Good

X OK

O Mediocre

O Avoid

Review by Jason Pyles / November 20, 2009

Like professional victims, some gals just fall for one monster after another. Bella Swan is one such damsel who’s distressed by her modern “Beauty and the Beast” tale, except in her case, it’s “beasts” — plural.

Yes, in “New Moon” 18-year-old Bella finds herself entangled in a teenage love triangle: One young man, Edward, isn’t young at all; he’s a 109-year-old vampire. And the other brawny beau is a part-time lycanthrope named Jacob.

Neither sharp-toothed suitor seems suitable, so to quote a phrase from Def Leppard, “Love bites” for Bella.

Stephenie Meyer, the author of the addictive Twilight Series, borrows from various “star-cross’d lovers” from the 16th and 18th centuries, which she blends with the mythos of other tragic creatures, such as vampires and werewolves, into a mystical amalgam of melodrama.

Indeed, one plot line found in this latest movie is inspired by William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” a citation the movie dutifully references.

In “New Moon” Bella becomes preoccupied with aging and expresses her desire to become a vampire. But heartbreak befalls her after Edward decides to vanish from her life, in hopes of protecting her from sharing his soulless existence. In her grief, Bella discovers that reckless behavior will conjure smoky apparitions of a disapproving, disappearing Edward, which only encourages her thrill-seeking further, which leads her deeper into peril. Also, in Edward’s absence, Bella finds a sort of muscle-bound rebound in a shamelessly shirtless Jacob in shorts.

It was exactly a year ago today that the saga’s first installment, “Twilight,” hit theaters nationwide. If you’ve never read the books, viewing the forerunning film prior to seeing “New Moon” is prerequisite. “Twilight” introduces the characters while delivering an intriguing story, but it also has some poorly executed special effects in attempting to depict vampiric powers.

By contrast, “New Moon” lacks the suspense of the first movie, but it improves on its illustrations of super-human physicality. For example, Edward’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” tree-scaling in “Twilight” is much less convincing than Jacob’s Jackie Chan-like ascent up the scenery in “New Moon.”

But still, the portrayal of the werewolves is hit and miss, with some acceptable displays and others that look cartoonish, like animals from “The Chronicles of Narnia” movies.

Both “Twilight” and “New Moon” effectively preserve their allegorical allusion to abstinence (a blatant theme that’s no doubt invisible to most teenagers).

Directed by Chris Weitz

Kristen Stewart / Robert Pattinson / Taylor Lautner

Drama 130 min.

MPAA: PG-13 (for some violence and action)