Twilight Saga: New Moon Retrospective

Alright everyone! Here it goes!

Let's review NEW MOON.

As last time, I won't be doing a negative review of the movie. Yes, it is a bad movie, but I want to try and get people to take a look at this film in a new light.

I actually really liked the montage after Edward leaves, involving the time-lapse tracking shot and the e-mails to Alice. It was a good way of drawing us into the film, passing by a significant period of time without just saying “6 months later...” Also, I noticed that Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner have way better chemistry than Stewart and Pattinson. This is mostly on part of Taylor Lautner, who is a pretty decent actor and is good for his role as Jacob. I like Robert Pattinson as an actor, but he just didn't sell his part as Edward very well. I think this mostly comes from getting stuck with the cool icy “Blue” of their not-so-subtle Red vs Blue love triangle (come on, Jacob is even a red wolf, and Edward almost always wears blue or black... lame).

The Face Punch scene was appropriately awkward. This is of course the scene where Wolfboy and Token Human boy go to see a movie with Bella. I kinda want to see the Face Punch movie, though. Guess I'm stuck with Paranormal Love Triangle: The Movie for now.

As an interesting note (neither positive nor negative): There's some definite signs of Mormon influence, namely the scrap booking theme, and the idea that no good people go to hell (regardless of religious belief).

My biggest grief is that it looks like she lightly taps her head on the rock when she passes out, rather than a storm surge knocking her out, which I could have bought much easier. I think that was the intention, it just wasn't really well demonstrated. Which is a shame, because the cinematography and story telling is actually pretty good in this movie, despite what they had to work with.

Alice is great in this movie. She demonstrates why exactly she has some character depth, and the actress shows more than one emotion, and unlike most characters who can fit into the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” archetype, she isn't an unbelievable character.

Also, is just me or does Michael Welch look a bit like Wil Wheaton? Also, what the heck is a guy named Mike doing playing a guy named Mike? I remember Mike vaguely from the books, but it's almost like the casting director asked “Hey, is your name Mike? Yeah? Then you're cast.”

Ah well, it was a fun movie in the same way the last one was. There's some moments I chuckled at, others I snoozed through, but overall I might watch this again if I'm snowed in and I have literally nothing else to watch.

That said, if you want to really see something funny, go check out this reading from the spoof book Awoken by Serra Elinsen!