New Moon
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Dakota Fanning
Dir: Christ Weitz
Rating: 3/5
To say that there was excitement and anticipation surrounding the release of this movie would be a little bit of an understatement and so far it hasn't disappointed at the box office.
Opening in the States with an impressive $140 million New Moon had the third biggest grossing opening weekend of all time and looks set to be one of the biggest grossing movies of 2009.
Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Ashely Greene all return as well as a whole host of new faces and characters.
Following Bella’s ill-fated 18th birthday party, Edward Cullen and his family abandon the town of Forks, Washington, in an effort to protect her from the dangers inherent in their world.
As the heartbroken Bella sleepwalks through her senior year of high school, numb and alone, she discovers Edward’s image comes to her whenever she puts herself in jeopardy. Her desire to be with him at any cost leads her to take greater and greater risks.
With the help of her childhood friend Jacob Black, Bella refurbishes an old motorbike to carry her on her adventures. Bella’s frozen heart is gradually thawed by her budding relationship with Jacob, a member of the mysterious Quileute tribe, who has a supernatural secret of his own.
When a chance encounter brings Bella face to face with a former nemesis, only the intervention of a pack of supernaturally large wolves saves her from a grisly fate, and the encounter makes it frighteningly clear that Bella is still in grave danger.
As an adaptation goes this is pretty good as with the first movie director Chris Weitz has stuck faithfully to the story, yes of course the story has been condensed into 130 minutes, but fans of the books won't be disappointed.
Despite it being condensed at 130 minutes the movie really is too long and you will start looking at your watch half way through, probably because it really does lack action.
Yes for a vampire movies there's not a drop of blood or a fang in sight and it really just lacks excitement and suspense, which is a shame.
However Weitz, who didn't film Twilight, has done a good job of coming into the franchise and picking up the reigns, it's isn't obvious that it's a different filmmaker's vision behind the movie.
What was also great to see was Weitz wasn't afraid to remove Edward Cullen for the majority of the movie, just like in the book, despite the popularity of Robert Pattinson. It would have been so easy to use the actor more in a bid to get more fans into see the movie, it's great to see him be true to the book.
Once again the movie rides on the shoulders of Kristen Stewart who does do a good job but her heartbreak and pain is more like a sulking teenager which I found a bit disappointing. Due to the constraints of film her relationship and feelings for Jacob Black do grow very quickly but that really cannot be helped.
It's great to see Taylor Lautner's character Jacob Black get a bigger part in the movie and his transformation into wolf form really was one of the highlights of the film, I thought the wolves looked great!
The other wolf pack characters weren't really explored and I hope we see more of the pack dynamic in the third movie Eclipse.
But it was great to see the Volturi for the very first time with Michael Sheen taking on the central role as Aro and Dakota Fanning as Jane.
New Moon is definitely better tan last year's Twilight it had a stronger plot and better performances from it's cast but it is too long and suffers from the odd very dodgy special effects.
It looks like the excitement surrounding this franchise will rumble on as Eclipse hits cinemas in the summer.
Twilight Saga; New Moon is out now.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Twilight Robert Pattinson