'New Moon' - More Teenage Angst and a Love Triangle for the Ages

'New Moon' continues the adventures of the weird lovers, the human girl Bella, and the vampire boy Edward started in 'Twilight'. The romance becomes a love triangle because of the introduction of Jacob, who is a-well-a werewolf of course.

Some spoilers possible.

Thanks to an accident involving a paper cut and an attempted exsanguination by one of Edward's kin, Edward rather melodramatically decides to leave Bella forever for her own good. Bella takes the whole thing as expected, moping around for months on end, screaming in her sleep, and attempting to do rather stupid and risky things. The latter is perhaps understandable as the apparition of Edward always appears to tell her not to. Well, if accepting rides from dangerous bikers or jumping off cliffs are what takes to see her beloved, undead Edward, Bella thinks, so be it.

Eventually, as the hurt of being abandoned fades, Bella gravitates toward the quiet, hunky Jacob, a Native American lad with long, dark flowing locks, a barrel chest that he usually shows to advantage by leaving his shirt off, and a dark secret. That secret turns out the he and several of his friends can turn into giant wolves, usually when they get angry. This can make things a little dangerous to their human friends/lovers. Lovers' spats usually end up with thrown objects and hurt feelings. When one lover is a werewolf it can up with dismembered limbs and ripped faces.

Bella sure knows how to pick them.

Enter a complication from the first movie in the form of a vengeful, red headed blood sucker, Edward suddenly getting suicidal, and a quick trip to Italy for a meeting with some creepy vampire enforcers, and Bella's senior year is shaping up rather dramatically.

One might ask, what is the attraction for Edward, am undead blood sucker who is a hundred and nine? One answer might be that a lot of teenage girls would prefer the attentions of older men, charming, mature, cultured, gentlemanly. Let's face it, most teenage boys are kind of awkward, hormone addled twits who are after one thing alone. The problem is that most older men look-well-old and that creeps out the nubile teenager, not to mention gets them talked about, especially by law enforcement. But put the charming, mature, cultured, gentlemanly guy in the shape of a seventeen year old boy, pale as he is, and one gets the complete package.

And what about the attraction for Bella, aside from the fact that she is cute? Not much, one is afraid to say, except that she does not giggle, which is certainly a plus. But Bella is kind of bland, not the sort one would think would be the object of a vampire's desire, except of course for dinner.

The theater had the usually contingent of Bella wannabes (and their boyfriends) squealing at all of their favorite scenes. We had some fun with the crowd waiting for the next movie, walking slowly up the line, saying just loud enough to be heard, "Buffy stakes him. Buffy stakes him." Sadly Sarah Michelle Geller was not in New Moon. Now there was a girl with personality.

The Australian writer, John Birmingham, has it in for all of the Bella and Edward fans, by the way, and sees a threat to national security from the Twilight craze.

"The sudden population explosion of neo-Gothic Edward and Bella wannabes amongst intense, bookish teenage girls and the skinny boys who want to have sex with them has provided the perfect cover for hundreds of actual bloodsucking ghouls to emerge from hiding and walk our streets as if those streets were nothing more than the fresh meat aisle at the local supermarket."

JB's solution is simply this: stake 'em all and let God sort ;em out.

"The main challenge that arises with putting down a vampire outbreak is distinguishing the real bloodsuckers from the foolish would-be imitators who would foolishly imitate them in the hope of scoring some pasty faced nookie. The simple answer is to stake them all and see who explodes in a True Blood-style eruption of stringy offal and horror, and who just screams in pain and tries to call the police."

That's a little bit harsh, but after all these are harsh times. Profiling undead should be an easy thing, since they don't seem to have a lobby--yet,

Sources: The Twilight Saga: New Moon, IMDB

Twilight Film Review, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, November 22nd, 2009

Vampire Bloodsuckers Bleeding Us Dry, John Birmingham, Brisbane Times, November 19th, 2009