ANOMALY //>

Aoooh!The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart
Directed by: Chris Weitz
4/5

THIS is the Twilight movie i've been waiting for!!!!! The series has had a massive quality boost when compared to the first movie. Not that i hated Twilight........well....i kinda did on first viewing, but it grew on me, and i've come to accept it, even though it's MASSIVELY flawed. New Moon however, nearly reached PERFECT status at certain points. In fact, as an overall film, i was VERY pleased with the final result.

I give big props to director Chris Weitz for bringing a breath of fresh air to NM. Gone are the indie style camera movements and saturated blue tones of the first movie [which i liked]. Instead we have more of an Earthy looking film [in tone with the werewolf theme], and a much slicker and interesting style of direction. The tone and look of the book was captured perfectly. I can't fault anything about it. I'm happy to see Catherine Hardwick [Director of Twilight] gone from this project. No offense to the ladies reading this, but, this story needed more of a masculine touch to it. Catherine and her shaky cam and grainy close ups would have ruined this for me. It suited movie 1, but not this.

The introduction of Jacob was one of my favourite parts of the first movie, so it's no surprise that his beefed up role in NM made me enjoy this movie a lot more. In fact, Kristen Stewart had even BETTER chemistry with Taylor than she did with Rob Pattz. Bella becomes MUCH more like able when she's around Jacob. She smiles, she shows a range of emotion, she isn't just a droning, stuttering fool like she is when she's with Edward. They're a likable couple. Of course, i can't NOT mention Jacobs ripped abs, which were greeted by howling screams in the cinema every time he showed up, lol. I personally don't get it, you'd think the women in the audience hadn't ever seen a gym body before. He's a handsome young guy though, so i get it, but that's the issue with him for me, he's just too young to drool over. He is great in the part though.

Another great addition to the cast is Dakota Fanning as vampire Jane. She doesn't do much, but when she does pop up, she's a scurry lil' thang. The rest of the vampire clan, The Volturi, are pretty cool too. Especially Michael Sheen as Aro. Victoria's return in the film is also handled really well, and we get a great forest chase sequence [which wasn't in the book] between her and some werewolves. GREAT scene.

This IS Twilight, so it's not going to be problem free. There's still a bit of cheese thrown in every now and again. The main moment being a scene featuring Edward and Bella frolicking through a forest, dressed in Abecrombe and Finch clothing, all done in slow motion. It's laughable that it was included, and really took me out of the movie.
The vampire make up is also still really fucked. They look cool, don't get me wrong. They certainly LOOK "other worldly". But for vampires to LIVE with humans, there needs to be some sort of believability to how they appear. These vamps look anything but human. Sometimes they look fucking ridiculous!.........like Jasper for example!!!!!! They fucked up his face in movie 1, but wait till you see him in this. GOOD LORD! it's like Edward Scissorhands bleached his whole head! he just looks really ugly and shit. Edward was looking a little on the pancake face side as well. Almost as if he was melting, like wax. No.

They make up for all of this with the AWESOME werewolf effects though. They were actually kinda scary, very big, and very vicious. I thought they'd make them a bit more cuddly, but they pulled them off well. I only wish we saw more of them.

Aside from minor make up gripes, and cheesy scenery, the rest of the movie was really enjoyable. It's getting a very mixed reception from fans, and not a very good one from critics, which is surprising me, because i find Twilight to be so inferior when compared to NM, but people seemed to enjoy Twilight more. Maybe it;'s because i enjoyed the NM book so much, i dunno. I really loved it. As a fan, i had a blast!