Review: New Moon for the teens

Film: The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Director: Chris Weitz
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Jackson Rathbone
Rating: ** 1/2

So by now, dear reader, I am pretty sure you know how deeply, The Twilight Saga: New Moon has bitten. (To be precise it has reportedly collected $579,831,168 and counting.) A sequel to the hugely successful 2008 Twilight, it follows closely Stephen Meyer's book about the haplessly-in-love-with-a-vampire teenaged girl, her object of affection, white-as-chalk vampire, and a brooding werewolf.

It continues from Twilight; Bella (Kristen Stewart) is now settled in, in her relationship with Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), but not happily. Her worries now centre on the thought that she will continue ageing while Edward won't.

(Pretty early to be worrying about, considering it hasn't even been a year since she started dating Edward.) A birthday celebration turns nasty when the newest Cullen and struggling to be 'vegeterian' (blood-sucker of animals and not humans), Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) almost attacks Bella. This is enough for Edward to travel far away from Bella's life.

Bella, of course, is inconsolable and finds peace in the arms of Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who later turns into a werewolf and a sworn enemy of vampires. Edward heads to provoke the Volturi, a powerful and old vampire coven, when he wrongly thinks Bella has died. Bella gets to know of this and tries to save him.

The story, as I mentioned earlier sticks closely to the text of Meyer. Personally, Twilight itself was a mediocre movie about the angst of a lover. I don't see a reason to not put the movie itself in the 'exploitative' genre. There may not have been nudity, crass violence and cheap production, but it is an exploitation, if I may of the emotions of the teenaged. I don't blame tweens and teens swaying for the movie, simply because it puts on film a good-looking bloke, a female protagonist terribly in love, and a love story of epic proportions (the forbidden love between a vampire and a human).

New Moon is a better product. It has great cinematography and visual scenes. Something that immediately comes to mind is the chase of a vampire by a pack of werewolves in the woods, as the camera swoons over them, stops at the expression of an unflustered vampire and the gnarling wolves, which ultimately ends in the vampire making a dive into the ocean. All this while with a great background score.

Another point where the movie does better than its prequel is the action. There are more vampires, and there is also a pack of angry werewolves, and there is more action. The new director Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass ) does seem to have the action and camera work more in control. However, where he fails and so does the movie, is the utterly unconvincing love story of Bella and Edward. In New Moon, Bella bellows, howls, cries, winces in pain. You'd almost think she's suffering from severe stomach ache. But it supposedly isn't, but an aching memory of Edward. One just isn't able to
comprehend as to why a college girl would wince so much in pain for a guy, and the movie also just can't explain that.

At least, in the first movie, the love story between the two was more convincing. But not this one.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon, beyond doubt is a mediocre movie. Not so bad, simply because of the pace of the story telling, but boring whenever, Bella pines for her lover.