An Actor's Critique of Twilight Saga: New Moon Movie

Like the first film, I was also disappointed with New Moon. I can ramble on and on about how the movie didn't meet my high expectations and how annoyed I was when most of the female audience members shrill every time Jacob or Edward takes off their shirt, but I prefer to write this review based on an actor's point of view. I've been doing stage, tv, and film acting for nine years so I guess that gives me enough experience to criticize as an actor...I think.

I pretty much expected that I wouldn't enjoy the movie because I read the book but we have to remember that a book and a movie is two very different forms of story-telling and no matter how much effort and loopholes a film director does, they can NEVER make a film as detailed as a book. Although I see that they were being faithful to the book, there were scenes that was cut, shortened, and worse, scenes that didn't end properly in transition between scenes.

Transitions in the film were soooooo slow. It bored me to hell! I understand the the story is mainly focused on Bella's depression and I commend Kirsten Stewart for making her "depressed" acting believable. (Maybe because she already had practice from looking depressed in the first film. Hehe!) The only problem with this kind of story line is that it's so dreadful to watch and to be able to catch the attention of the audience (and save them from indefinite boredom), there must be "Happy" scenes in between where the characters engage themselves in little or full-blown comedy. The film failed to do this. Taylor Lautner (a.k.a. Jacob and Shark Boy from "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl". Haha!) was the only person who could do this. His character's job was to liven up the mood and he unfortunately, wasn't able to do that due to poor acting skills.

Actually, I think that New Moon could have been a good film if only they could solve their biggest problem. Do you wanna know what the film's biggest problem is?

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM THE TWILIGHT SERIES MOVIES HAVE IS THEIR ACTOR'S ACTING.

The lead actors have poor performances in the film. In acting terms, they don't match the "beat", "rhythm", and "feel" of the scene. In short, they didn't take their acting seriously. Most filmmakers solve this problem by changing their actors in the next movie but with Twilight saga movies, I don't think that's an option. The actors are their hook to most audiences. Robert Pattinson attracts the dominant teen to young-adult female audience while Kirsten Stewart attracts the male audience.

The lead characters' acting were very stiff. I know the Vampire characters have to be stiff as a rock just as they were described in the book but they emphasized their stiffness too much! Stiffness and tension is an actor's worst enemy and unlike in stage acting, stiffness is noticeable on camera. Most of the time the Cullen family members just stood there not doing anything during shots between Edward and Bella. That is unacceptable in acting! Even if it's not your scene, if you're visible on camera or onstage, you should move, feel and act like your character. The best and most obvious example of over-stiffness in the film is Jasper Cullen. His face looks like he's just got hit by a ten-wheeler truck! Was his acting good? Nope. Why? Because of over-stiffness.

Jacob, Bella and Edward's acting was a bit-off too. The three characters didn't take their acting seriously. In acting terms, we can say that they weren't "In The Moment". The audience didn't feel Bella's feeling of grief during her "depressed" scenes, her feeling of longing during the scenes when Edward's illusion would show up, her feeling of panic during the scene where she has nightmares, and her pain during the scenes where she bled and got injured especially during the scene where she got thrown off the motorbike and hit her head on a rock. Jacob and Edward didn't show us their "longing" for Bella. The acting is too robotic. It's almost as if they just read the script, acted, and didn't even bother to interpret them. Their eyes! Oh my goodness! Do they even act with their eyes?! Because I don't think they do! Although, I do have to commend Kirsten Stewart because her acting as Bella Swan improved in New Moon but she still has a lot of work to do to make most of her acting believable.

I didn't enjoy the music. I didn't really imagine any of the songs in the soundtrack to be "New Moon-ish". Besides, I got annoyed at one scene when they kept repeating the lyric "There's a possibility..." and the camera kept turning non-stop!

NOW, THE THINGS I LIKED IN THE MOVIE.

The guest actors performed better than the lead actors. At first I thought Dakota Fanning wasn't the right fit for a Vampire movie because of her sweet child-star image but I was completely wrong. Dakota Fanning did an amazing job as Jane of the Volturri. I loved that she really felt the character and she took the character as her own. As always, fabulous job Dakota! *claps*

My favorite is Michael Sheen as Aro, the leader of the Volturri. Michael Sheen is a veteran stage, TV, and film actor. His performance was phenomenal! The only thing I loved about New Moon was Michael Sheen. His scene was the best in the movie because as soon as the scene started, he showed presence and command. That was the scene where no one in the movie theater spoke and everyone's eyes were on screen. That scene was breathtaking! I LOVE IT! :D