So unless you’re a teenage girl who has already memorized the Twilight books by heart, or you’re hopelessly in love with Robert Pattinson, who, if you ask me, resembles a dead salmon in his make-up, the meaning of this fine effort of highlighting male beauty will become almost imperceptible. Basically the main motif here is beautiful young things staring at each other for lengthy periods, lusting after each other with those eternally parted and pouty lips. One wonders, is there anything else these characters actually worry about besides the colossal mass of their feelings?It is senior year at Bella Swan’s (Kristen Stewart) school, and all begins with a haunting nightmare sequence, which is the love child of the “Blue Lagoon” and “Hansel and Gretel”. See, 18-year-old Bella, is dating the 109-year-old Edward Cullen (Robert Pattison), the hottest vampire in town who has frozen at the age of 17, and all she can worry about is that she’s aging and he’s not. Will he ever want her when she’s a grandmother? And please remember, this isn’t just some teenage romance that will run its course until college, it’s the “real thing,” forever and ever (Isn’t that what all of us poor souls thought in 12th grade?)! Frankly, the idea of female aging has already been transformed into a nightmare by the global culture and media, and watching an 18-year-old girl lament over this natural fact of life is completely infuriating and moreover seems harmful in the long run to the sensibilities of teenage girls who are already experiencing volatile adolescent psyches.
Now Edward lives with his clan of vampires, who have chosen to go vegetarian, however their settlement in the fair town of “Forks” has passed its expiry date since the townsfolk have started to notice that their creaseless pale faces could be ads for anti-aging creams. Plus, Edward loves Bella so much that he realizes he must leave her in order for the fair maiden to lead a normal life. A fake, merciless and badly-acted monologue summarized to Bella, “You’re not good enough for me, you don’t belong in my world.” Of course Bella just wants to turn into a vampire herself -- whatever it takes -- so she can be with Edward. How Romeo and Juliet! Alas, Edward and his clan abandon the town and Bella, finds herself in a prolonged depression, in which she writes pseudo-poetic letters to her vampire friend Alice (Edward’s sister): “Oh Alice, I can’t live without him, my soul is empty…” Dear Lord.
Luckily, another hot buff in town, the sweet American Indian boy Jacob (Taylor Lautner), befriends Bella; they hang out, walk in the woods together, go to the movies. It all looks like the beginning of another romance, one fit for a rom-com perhaps, but the problem is that Bella just can’t forget Edward’s otherworldly manliness despite her obvious attraction to regular Jacob. The chick digs freaks. Sure, it isn’t long before Jacob turns into a werewolf and prances around shirtless throughout the rest of the movie, so Bella can consider him a suitable candidate. Oh, the conundrum -- two hot guys, one a vampire the other a werewolf, going after the same run-of-the-mill suicidal girl. I mean, isn’t that every woman’s fantasy?
The story enfolds into an impossible climax, when Edward thinks that Bella is dead and tries to get himself killed by the Vatican-like royalty of the vampires in Italy (the Pope vampire is played by Michael Sheen) and Jacob tries to protect Bella from an evil vampire in America, and then Bella goes all the way to Italy to save Edward, and then Bella tries to sacrifice herself for Edward… It gets so shamelessly self-important that you wish you could just go back home and watch an episode of “True Blood.” At least that show provides genuine guilty pleasure and the vampires there have a sense of humor!
“Twilight Saga: New Moon” will surely appeal to its target audience of teenage girls with its languorous fairy-tale cinematography, hyperbolic dialogue, terrifyingly handsome male characters and its trademark “misery is so esthetic” atmosphere. It’s unbelievable how such a flimsy story can transform into a worldwide phenomenon.
