Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: New Moon

New Moon is supposed to have a big opening weekend leading into the Thanksgiving holiday. It probably will regardless of what I write here. Team Vampire Edward or Team Werewolf Jacob? Could care less, I just wanted to see a good movie. I saw the first movie and only know the story by the movies.

The first movie Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) meets this mysterious person, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). I bit of mystery, a bit of intrigue until the big reveal, he's a vampire. He can read other peoples thoughts but not hers. She's attracted to the bad boy vampire who pulls her bacon out of the fire a couple of times (avoids getting crushed by a car and possible brutalization by some thugs). They get along. Alright, I can deal with that.

We get into this episode the heroine Bella is all moody. She's having her birthday getting older but Edward being a vampire is permanently frozen physically at age 17 although he's really now 109. She doesn't want to loose him so she's asking him to turn her into a vampire. He says no because she doesn't understand the ramifications of becoming a blood sucker including the state of her soul.

Through a series of events Edward says that he must leave her forever in order to protect her. She wants to go. He says no and disappears. She chases after him but he can move super fast and she can't so there's no way she's going to catch him. She figures he'll come back to protect her so she decides to sleep in the forest. Never mind about her dad and his concern that his daughter is missing.

Bella gets all depressed and hangs in her bed room ignoring the world as it passes by. She finally decides to join the living. While out with a classmate she ignores the classmate for another reckless act with possible thugs on a motorcycle. During the escapade Edward appears to her. She figures that the adrenaline rush causes the Edward image. She decides that she'll trying riding a motorcycle to try to get Edward back. She enlists her childhood friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) to help her repair a motor cycle. During the process she starts to fall for him.

When the bike is finally finished Jacob tries to help her to ride and she ignores him and speeds off. She does see Edward images again before skidding into a rock where she hurts her head. Jacob comes over and takes off his shirt to wipe up the blood. In the theater, the ladies went wild and made cat calls since Taylor put on 30 pounds of muscle in order to keep the role.

Turns out Jacob has a gene as part of his American Indian heritage that is responsible for his transformation within the storyline. He and several others can transform into werewolves at will. They don't like vampires and there is a treaty between the two sides. He tries to protect her and shows his love towards her.

Jacob cares for Bella, but she used him to get her rush via the motorcycle. Through out the movie everything that people tell Bella not to do, she does. She has feelings for Jacob, she has feelings for Edward, she ignores her father, she dismisses the warnings of both the vampires and the werewolves. That is what put me off on this episode of the series was Bella's character.

She was self centered not caring about the feelings of her classmates, her dad, Jacob or Edward. She wanted what she wanted and screw the consequences or who she might hurt either physically or emotionally in the process. She didn't even care about the state of her soul as long as she could be with Edward. I found that me, me, me attitude extremely annoying and as a result it was hard for me to watch this film. Although I didn't look at my watch, I sat there wondering why this movie was dragging on and when it would be over. Ever been to the party and there's that ONE person who annoys you and you can't get away? Yeah, I'm sure you know what I mean. This selfish self absorbed character just grated on me and caused me to not enjoy the movie.

Was the movie good? With the "the world has got to center around me" attitude of Bella, I found it hard to watch this 2 hour and 10 minute "love" story.

Something that I did find interesting during this movie experience was the number of young kids in this movie. Even with the PG-13 rating, the themes were a little advanced for the number of 4-8 year olds that were in the theater. Another distraction though the movie were cell phones. I didn't hear anyone talking on them or having them ring, but the number of cell phone screen lights that were present through the movie was a little surprising.