Props to Summit, Sunswept, and Temple Hill entertainment companies for giving the Twilight audience exactly what they want. I mean, the way they hit their target audience is genius. I’m not going to argue that it’s not a good move for everyone involved either, including Stephanie Meyer who is making a fortune off her books. It’s just that guys who liked films this summer like G.I. Joe, Star Trek, Transformers 2, and folks who dig films like Public Enemies, and sure-to-be-nominated Oscar films like Nine, The Hurt Locker, Up In The Air, Precious, or Invictus, will be bored out of their skulls. But the girls will love it. New Moon and the Twilight Saga puts a whole new spin on the film-for-women genre term know as “chick flicks.”
Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is but then again I’m not a 14-year-old girl. Make that 14 to 30-year-old girl. I was one of five guys in a packed midnight screening who had to suffer through two hours of soap opera giddiness. Girls so giddy they couldn’t sit still, couldn’t breathe correctly—I was seriously concerned for their well being. Like I was in Shea Stadium, 1964 for a Beatles Concert; girls, and women, jumping up and down when shirtless guys walked across screen, clapping and swooning at Robert Pattinson and saying things like, “I like the way they make him walk slow,” meaning film him using slow motion techniques. It was an odd feeling to say the least, like I was at a party that I wasn’t invited to; and I can’t say I’ve witnessed a movie audience quite like this. Continuing with the actual overheard conversation above, the girl who said she likes it when they “make him walk slow,” her friend sitting next to her says, in a counterpoint, disagreeable tone, “Why?!” The slo-mo loving friend then replies, “Because he’s so hot.”
New Moon is a break-up film where the human teen heroine, Bella Swan played by Kristen Stewart (Adventureland, Into The Wild, Panic Room) grieves for the loss of her beloved vampire Edward Cullen played by Pattinson (Harry Potter 2 and 3, The Summer House). He breaks it off to protect her, partly because his vampire family can’t help but want her blood and something about a plot devised vampire named Victoria out to kill him. Obviously Bella doesn’t get the protection thing—we do, but she doesn’t; I mean she’s a teenager, way into her emotions, doesn’t talk about her career or applying to colleges, speaks of no life goals of any sort…what do you expect? Bella copes by spending time with Jacob, part of a werewolf clan that when human go shirtless like they’re always Peter Pan-like kids on that island in Lord of the Flies. It’s more trouble for Jacob than it’s worth because Bella would almost rather kill herself to be with Edward than learn to fall in love again. Which she almost does, contemplates death and tries to develop feelings with Jacob. Her dad, Charlie Swan played by Billy Burke (TV’s Wonderland and 24) tells her, “Sometimes you got to learn to love what’s good for you.”
Jacob tries to make her see it that way but she keeps pushing him away. In the end, Edward’s sister Alice makes a surprise appearance and suddenly Edward is in need of Bella’s help. She’s off to Brazil to save him and at this point we’re nearly two hours into the film. Way too long a stretch of non-action to get to this measly morsel of semi-goodness, with Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen as royalty in the vampire family who threaten to snuff out the lives of Eddie and Bella. I’ll spare you the outcome in case you want to see it, but the problem with all of this, soap opera and boring aside, is that critically Dakota Fanning’s thirty-second close-up is the best part of the film.
Saga is exactly right. Again, these smart producers. To throw saga into the title frees them up from having to produce one tightly packaged ninety-minute romantic action-thriller and instead keeps the whole thing open for endless profits. Oh yeah, it’s going to be a mad house at the theaters this Thanksgiving because teens will be looking for something to do other than hang out at the suburban Starbucks or mall near their house (again, strategic placement opening this weekend as opposed to shoppers’ Black Friday). And New Moon is just the ticket. Dark, semi-suspenseful for teens, watered-down scary moments for the broader ticket base, teen romance.... In terms of sales, New Moon takes it even further: if Pattinson and shirtless Lost Boys are a draw for the teen girls, as the hype in magazines and talk shows and this audience indicates, then the girls are a draw for the boys—the girls’ dates, boys who want to be their dates—and so on and so on. Not to mention fangs and blood and wolves that could shred your eyes out. It’s the kind of film a studio banks on for their late quarter revenue. Blood suckers of a different kind.
Speaking of blood, if only there were more of it. There’s a great moment in Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) where a moment or two is generously given to discuss the value of blood. It’s a montage of science, artful writing and photography that is brilliantly done to convey just how important this drug is to someone like Dracula. Quite frankly, just about every vampire film has a moment of blood fixation, the better ones do anyway, and New Moon is no different only it’s so short lived. Blood is the cause of everything in a vampire world and it should be afforded just as much creative time as Bella’s depression.
Other than the kicking and gasps of “good grief,” or “good lord,” or “I can’t watch it,” hands nervously covering blushing faces when the boys’ shirts came off, the girls in the theater didn’t seem to mind that I felt it was like the TV show 24, fifty minutes of soap opera and ten minutes of action. Nor did they seem to be affected by the poor computer animation of the werewolves. They didn’t seem distracted by the fact that Michael Sheen, the head werewolf in the Underworld films was now the head vampire in Twilight. And they certainly didn’t have any reservations about soppy dialogue such as “your breath is a gift,” or “the only thing that could hurt me is you,” and “if this is about my soul, take it; I don’t want it,” or “but my pain is the only way to prove he was real, that you all were,” and, “It’s like a hole has been punched through my chest.” Exactly.
New Moon is what it is. It’s not the most creatively crafted film. It feels like it should be on TV, maybe the Sci-Fi Channel. The plotting and story relies too much on emotion and observation. The main character is passive, doesn’t get involved in cause effect conflict building, takes very little action. The cinematography is flat, the editing elementary. But I applaud the producers for delivering something their audience wanted. Granted, I’m just not part of that audience but those who are will love it. I did like the opening title sequence, however. Neatly done. And the trailers, they’re all geared toward women: When in Rome with Kristen Bell; It’s Complicated, with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin; Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones with Susan Sarandon, Mark Walhberg, Rachel Weisz, and Stanley Tucci; and Remember Me, with Robert Pattinson and Pierce Brosnan.
New Moon is rated PG-13 with a running time of two hours and ten minutes.
If you’re interested and haven’t done so already, you can read the first chapter of New Moon here: http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/newmoon.html. Director Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass, About a Boy, American Pie) does well capturing Meyer’s words and images. But I want to believe he was chomping at the bit to do more action stuff. I imagine you can only film two people hugging or talking closely for so long before the redundancy drives you mad, stuck in a cycle of two-shots and over-the-shoulder shots, etc.