New Moon

catherine hardwicke's feeling for teen angst and female anxiety gave twilight (the first film of the series based on stephenie meyer's novels) immense potential. but chris weitz's sequel new moon is full of lost potential. harwicke's visual elegance via cinematographer elliott davis emphasized the wooded northwest territory as a natural wonderland where the heroine bella's (kristen stewart) uneasy puberty emerged. hardwicke gave meyer's fairy/gothic tale an idealized representation of universal adolescent tension. bella's attraction to teen vampire edward cullen (robert pattinson) normalized today's sexual permissiveness-the cultural pressure teens feel to be sexually active-with a concept both shrewd and authentically brontë-esque.

but new moon is more franchise than inspired idea. bella obsesses after edward leaves (to keep from turning her into a vampire) and her fretfulness increases once platonic friend jake (taylor lautner)-going through his own hormonal change-declares his love and transforms into a werewolf. weitz lacks hardwicke's sensuality, her film rhythm and romanticism. he brings the obviousness of his unintended features (about a boy, in good company) and the cgi blatancy of his dreadful fantasy film the golden compass. jake's lupine metamorphosis is as cartoonish and dull as the latter flick's polar bear battle.

in the same manner as the harry potter films (to which twilight was way superior), new moon approaches the book series as a dull read-dragging out story elements with no narrative economy, playing to the target audience's blockbuster mentality rather than respecting their romantic delight. the volturi subplot about a vatican-like vampire council flips meyer's christian reticence into interview with a vampire-style occult cliché. weitz doesn't clarify meyer's cosmos and can't differentiate between dawdling and mood-setting. repetitious scenes of bella-edward, bella-jake endlessly swooning and hesitating never attain emotional peak.

bella's "its killing me!" and jake's "you're breaking up with me!" lack the necessary resonance and tumescence.when jake joins a werewolf boy-cult, weitz doesn't know how to photograph the kid's new pumped, honeyed body; he loses the important sensual, moral undercurrent.politically partisan critics had complained that the series emphasized abstinence; they ignored hardwicke's stifled-volcano sensuality-preferring the libertinism of last year's abortion fantasy 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days and the vampire nihilism of let the right one in. weitz' ineptitude inadvertantly falls into the same politically correct trap. bella's confusion about the mystery of boys, adrenaline and testosterone matches her confusion about her soul. for weitz, it's all just f/x.

-- the twilight saga: new moon directed by chris weitz runtime: 130 min.