New Moon Reviews: Twilight Sequel Sucks, Maybe as Bad as Original

What's in a review of the "New Moon" movie? Besides complaints of inferior storytelling, lasting far too long, and cheesy special effects (which are still better than "Twilight," it's predecessor), not much else can be found in reviews of "New Moon." If you thought "Twilight" sucked (forgive the double entendre), then you might be thinking that "New Moon," the second in "The Twilight Saga" series of movies will suck twice as much. According to most critics, you would be correct. But there are a few whose reviews have said a few nice things about "New Moon" (every one of them are used in "New Moon" promos, it would seem), not that the millions of "Twilight" fans really care. "New Moon" stands to gross near or over $100 million in box office sales its first weekend in release. How's that for sucking?

Besides, reviews won't make "New Moon" money. Teenage girls will...

Nicole Sperling at Hollywood Insider attributes the success of "Twilight" to teenage girls watching the move 6 or 7 times -- and that was just the opening weekend. She labels them "obsessed" and believes that that same obsession will translate into pure box office gold for the second movie in the franchise. And there may be something to that theory, because not once in all the years since "Twilight" has been a raging teen girl phenomenon has there been any evidence of teen boys going gaga over reading the books -- or seeing the movies, either, for that matter. Society (and Hollywood) must face the fact that teen boys as a target audience need far more than unrequited and forbidden love, toothy (Robert Pattinson has a scary mouthful of teeth, people) sparkly vampires that move like The Flash, and Taylor Lautner turning into a big dog (er, werewolf? There were better special effects used in "An American Werewolf In London" in 1981 than is evident in the cheesy cartoonish morphing in "New Moon").

About the sparkly vampires... no... nevermind... If it has to be explained that the concept is hideously ludicrous and ridiculously girlish, then there is no really good way to explain that the concept really doesn't work...

As for reviews, Rotten Tomatoes gives "New Moon," the second part in what may be a neverending saga of forbidden teenage love between a vampire and a human set amidst high school teen angst, a 30% on their Tomato-Meter, which is pretty rotten tomatoes. The movie reviews seem to be a little better skewed among the top critics, though, with the movie scoring a 37%. Why the low scores? Rotten Tomatoes says that although the movie "might satisfy hardcore fans of the series... outsiders are likely to be turned off by its slow pace, relentlessly downcast tone, and excessive length."

Manohla Dargis at the New York Times described "New Moon" as "the juiceless, near bloodless sequel about a teenage girl and the sparkly vampire she, like, totally loves."

The Washington Post's Michael O'Sullivan pointed out that the movie was actually about zombies, those mindless millions of fans with pre-ordered tickets who "stagger into the theatre... regardless of what they hear about the movie." Although he found the melodrama diabetes-inducing, O'Sullivan did say that the movie had "enough wolf whistle in this sexy, scary romp to please anyone."

Lee Paatsch at Australia's Herald Sun even finds fault in the acting (even Dakota Fanning couldn't save the film?), writing that the "acting is shonky." Even if you don't know what "shonky" means, it can't be a synonym for "good."

Peter Travers at Rolling Stone, perhaps America's favorite film critic (sorry, Roger Ebert), writes that Chris Weitz' directing, although imbuing "New Moon" with more action, but does not develop Bella Swan's character as well as director Catherine Hardwicke did in "Twilight." Travers also came down hard on the actors: "I can't comment on the acting because I didn't catch Pattinson, Stewart and Lautner doing any. They basically primp and pose through the same humdrum motions they did before." And the special effects: "... Jacob turns into an unconvincing digital wolf." Travers ended up giving "New Moon" two stars out of four, but said that after being "glamoured" by "True Blood," "Twilight seems even more sexless and toothless. I prefer my undead with a little life in them."

It would seem that only the true fans of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" books actually like the movie(s). In fact, it seems that, besides a handful of critics here and there, some even admitting to a kind of duality tugging of guilty pleasure versus artistic merit, "New Moon" is just a better produced continuation of a not-very-good or even well-told vampire/ werewof story that appeals far more to the romantic notion of young girls than to anyone (ask Stephen King, who finds Meyer's work "not very good").

But reviews aside, "New Moon" appeals to enough that most professional movie box office prognosticators believe it is going to not only surpass the first weekend gross of "Twilight" ($69.6 million) but could possibly break the $100 million barrier its first week out. And you can bet that there will be quite a few teen boys filling theatre seats as well, regardless of how much they might think the movie sucks. Because taking one's girlfriend to see a movie she really wants to see trumps bad reviews, having to sit through two hours of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner shirtless, and mind-numbingly juvenile love scenes. And sacrifice, young gentlemen, is very romantic.

******

Sources:

NYTimes.com
RottenTomatoes.com
RollingStone.com
Washington Post
Herald Sun