Showing posts with label Twilight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twilight. Show all posts

Saturday, 3 April 2010

The Twilight Saga: New Moon



The best thing that can be said about The Twilight Saga: New Moon is that the incessantly mumbled, incomprehensible, muttering that passes for dialogue makes for an excellent approximation of the numb affect noted in teenage interaction. Characters haunt each other, stumbling about gracelessly and vocalising their emotions - spelling their ideas out in clipped, reverential, bulletins. Awkward, thought-collecting beats are mercilessly held as childish mindscapes pore over their next would-be-profound statement. Befuddled suitors wander around shirtless in the rain and, above all, nobody really communicates. The Twilight series is notionally about human dealings with Vampires, although the monsters here are neutered, abstinent, and exempt from any usual supernatural rulings. Instead, they have superhuman athleticism, require no sexualised sustenance, and sparkle in the sunlight. 

Robert Pattinson and pals are Vampires in name only. They aren't low nightmarish vermin seeking to establish a one-up on humanity, they're special best friends that fawn over the dull and dreary. The undead family that Kristen Stewart's Bella Swan chums around with are a cabal of mood maintenance parasites able to scan thoughts and indicate futures. Their abilities are so finely attuned they require practically no input from Bella. They revere her for hysterically unsubstantiated virtues, endlessly endangering their cobbled together collective for a girl that reads onscreen as a long, vapid, scowl. There's a vague insinuation that these ancient things are feasting on her raw emotional energy, that Bella's teenage moodiness is a delectable treat for a destitute life-sucker. The idea is never even remotely pursued; these Draculas are much too wholesome. Buckle up for a two hour treatise on frenzied repression!