The Twilight Saga:
New Moon
Year: 2009
Director: Chris Weitz
Starring: Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart
Runtime: 138 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 29/04/21
Director: Chris Weitz
Starring: Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart
Runtime: 138 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 29/04/21
In my review of the original Twilight film, I defended it using the same logic I used to defend my love of the Transformers films, although I may not like Twilight, it’s wrong to hate it just because it’s a dumb film for teenage girls because there are plenty of dumb films for teenage boys that are just as bad and considered acceptable. But much like my review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, my opinion of New Moon is indefensibly unfavourable.
New Moon opens on Bella’s (Kristen Stewart) eighteenth birthday where she has finally realised that she will continue to age and Edward (Robert Pattinson) will not. After a mishap involving a papercut, Edward and the Cullen’s move away from Forks believing that their presence simply puts Bella in danger, doing so ends the relationship between Bella and Edward.
Bella enters an extreme depressive period for several months, but eventually decides that she needs to try and re-integrate with her friends. Bella consistently puts herself in danger in an attempt to make Edward come back to save her (like he does multiple times in the first film), this also involves growing closer to Jacob (Taylor Lautner) who develops an emotional attachment to her. Jacob begins to exhibit major anger issues and after confronting his friends about it she discovers that Jacob belongs to a pack of werewolves. The werewolves are enemies of the vampires and as such Bella becomes the subject of contested ownership (yes, ownership).
Meanwhile after Bella cliff doves and appears to have killed herself Edward plans to reveal himself to the world so that an ancient council of vampires known as the Volturi will end his life. Bella who has survived the cliff diving incident is taken to Italy by Alice (Ashley Greene) in an attempt to stop Edward from ending his own life.
New Moon opens on Bella’s (Kristen Stewart) eighteenth birthday where she has finally realised that she will continue to age and Edward (Robert Pattinson) will not. After a mishap involving a papercut, Edward and the Cullen’s move away from Forks believing that their presence simply puts Bella in danger, doing so ends the relationship between Bella and Edward.
Bella enters an extreme depressive period for several months, but eventually decides that she needs to try and re-integrate with her friends. Bella consistently puts herself in danger in an attempt to make Edward come back to save her (like he does multiple times in the first film), this also involves growing closer to Jacob (Taylor Lautner) who develops an emotional attachment to her. Jacob begins to exhibit major anger issues and after confronting his friends about it she discovers that Jacob belongs to a pack of werewolves. The werewolves are enemies of the vampires and as such Bella becomes the subject of contested ownership (yes, ownership).
Meanwhile after Bella cliff doves and appears to have killed herself Edward plans to reveal himself to the world so that an ancient council of vampires known as the Volturi will end his life. Bella who has survived the cliff diving incident is taken to Italy by Alice (Ashley Greene) in an attempt to stop Edward from ending his own life.
I have basically summarised the whole plot because it’s so disjointed and disconnected that it’s difficult to provide a synopsis that adequately reflects what’s actually going on in the film. The reasons for Edward leaving to visit the Volturi in the first place are glossed over briefly and viewers aren’t really given any explanation as to why he went there. Then once we return to Edward in the final act of the film and he believes Bella to be dead it’s not explained what he has been doing for the Volturi, because they talk about his exceptional gifts, yet no attempt is made at explaining what gifts these are and why it benefits the vampire race, or how he has exhibited said gifts to the Volturi.
The real meat of the romance story is with Jacob for this film, and oh boy if you thought Bella’s relationship with Edward was problematic Stephanie Meyer somehow managed to outdo herself in toxicity levels for this one. New Moon basically sees the start of Bella’s decision to either date an emotionally manipulative emo who wants to eat her, or date an emotionally and physically abusive overprotective roid rager.
For arguments sake, I can buy the romance in the first Twilight. I don’t think it’s particularly good but from a fantasy novel mindset I can understand the attraction to the dangerous and the unknown that Bella has with Edward. But New Moon onwards, once Jacob gets involved? I’m honestly surprised that this series has not been called out more for how much it promotes toxic and abusive relationships. It paints them as desirable and it is actually kind of frightening to me that literally millions of teenage girls thought this was ok, and many still do! I called the Transformers films out for their racism and sexism; Twilight needs to be called out hard for its dangerous promotion of abuse relationships.
The real meat of the romance story is with Jacob for this film, and oh boy if you thought Bella’s relationship with Edward was problematic Stephanie Meyer somehow managed to outdo herself in toxicity levels for this one. New Moon basically sees the start of Bella’s decision to either date an emotionally manipulative emo who wants to eat her, or date an emotionally and physically abusive overprotective roid rager.
For arguments sake, I can buy the romance in the first Twilight. I don’t think it’s particularly good but from a fantasy novel mindset I can understand the attraction to the dangerous and the unknown that Bella has with Edward. But New Moon onwards, once Jacob gets involved? I’m honestly surprised that this series has not been called out more for how much it promotes toxic and abusive relationships. It paints them as desirable and it is actually kind of frightening to me that literally millions of teenage girls thought this was ok, and many still do! I called the Transformers films out for their racism and sexism; Twilight needs to be called out hard for its dangerous promotion of abuse relationships.
The acting is just as bad as it was in the first film, in some ways worse, and the script has that same problem of attempting to be poetically poignant all of the time, but instead just comes off as unfathomably stupid. The colour palette also changes from the blue hues used in Twilight to everything being bathed in a sunset orange now, and that’s really weird for when the vampires are around because it’s very clearly too bright for them not to be sparkly. The blue worked because it made everything look dull and washed out which is how Forks is described, New Moon onwards with this orange glow makes it feel like a gorgeous sunny holiday destination.
I have nothing good to say about New Moon. It’s a waste of time. All of the plot threads it sets up are never resolved and none of them are interesting anyway. It doesn’t learn from the mistakes the first film made, and the few things the first film did right it changes so it doesn’t even have them strengths to fall back on. New Moon is perhaps my least favourite film in the series (although the Breaking Dawn films certainly put up a good fight for that crown) and whilst I understand that I don’t think anyone but people who enjoy Twilight are going to watch this film, I struggle to understand how you can get any enjoyment from it. Even I who adores Michael Bay’s Transformers acknowledges that Revenge of the Fallen is irredeemable garbage, so why don’t the Twilight fanbase do that for New Moon?
I have nothing good to say about New Moon. It’s a waste of time. All of the plot threads it sets up are never resolved and none of them are interesting anyway. It doesn’t learn from the mistakes the first film made, and the few things the first film did right it changes so it doesn’t even have them strengths to fall back on. New Moon is perhaps my least favourite film in the series (although the Breaking Dawn films certainly put up a good fight for that crown) and whilst I understand that I don’t think anyone but people who enjoy Twilight are going to watch this film, I struggle to understand how you can get any enjoyment from it. Even I who adores Michael Bay’s Transformers acknowledges that Revenge of the Fallen is irredeemable garbage, so why don’t the Twilight fanbase do that for New Moon?