BrownPenguin.com

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:27:00 +0000

Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Vampires, Werewolves, and love are the main ingredients in the blend of genres that is The Twilight Saga : New Moon. The main difference from the previous Twilight film is the werewolves have a more prominent role this time around, and the lead female character Bella once again has a new love interest that is sensitive but at the same time dark, mysterious, and part monster.

The werewolf in her life is Jacob, who at first seems relatively normal like in the previous movie. But later, it is revealed that he has become a werewolf, a species that has a fued with the vampires. This adds to the already numerous emotions that Bella feels, because not only is she in love with a vampire who has a family that wants to feast on her, but now she has a best friend who is the enemy of that love who also has a dark and violent side. Anywhere Bella turns will be a complicated and somewhat painful road, and this is what this movie explores greatly.

Emotion is important in any kind of science fiction or fantasy peice. It is what grounds the movie in reality and make the audience still relate to it, even with its far-fetched premise. New Moon has plenty of this, with love, allegiance, loss, and fear. But the lead characters response to all these emotions may divide some of the audience.

Audiences will either relate to Bella and her painful struggle with her lost love, or will be annoyed by her greatly, considering her pain and pitiful appearance stays with her throughout the entire movie. There is scene after scene of her either talking about how painful it is to be away from her vampire love Edward or doing something wreckless because of it. Some wreckless behavior includes jumping off a tall cliff into water and getting onto the motorcycle of a strange man probably twice her age. Some may be sympathetic and understanding of her rather idiotic behavior, but others may start to dislike the character for being overly obsessed with one person.

For fans of vampire and werewolf tales, they may appreciate the few action sequence where the two species face each other, and some versus themselves. But overall, they may find the love story to be a bit too much and decreasing their enjoyment of the film. Others who enjoy emotion-rich love stories will likely find the film interesting whether or not they agree with Bella's behavior fully or not. It is a love story that spans multiple books, and now movies, and many will follow the emotional ride. Its blend of romance and horror and fantasy will attract various audiences, though all of which may feel a little cheated out of their favorite genre due to the movie trying to balance them all.

2012

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:36:00 +0000

Movie Review: 2012

Grand Effects, Grand Story, Grand Ridiculousness. The makers of 2012 definitely wanted to leave all previous disaster movies in the dust as far as visuals, and they succeeded, but in the process they made it extremely unbelievable as well.

If someone were to research 2012, they would find various predictions and other info on how in 2012 the earth will undergo some sort of disaster that will change it drastically or destroy it completely. Is there any truth to it? The movie 2012 does not aim to convince the audience this will indeed happen. There is a lack of contemplation over the theory by any characters. It is simply a sudden realization that the world will end, followed by two hours of ridiculous amounts of damage to the world, mostly through immense earthquakes.

Character development exists, although there are far too many characters to gain significant feelings for them. Unlike director Roland Emmerich's superior disaster movie Independence Day, most of the characters in 2012 lack strong and heartfelt dialogue. Instead there is some forced humor in a very disastrous situation that should be darker than the disaster movies before it, because it is inspired by true historical information and theory. One of the few characters that stayed appropriately serious throughout the movie was Chiwetel Ejiofor's character Adrian, who also delivered one of the only serious monologues in the movie.

Where one may find enjoyment in the movie is primarily in the action sequences and special effects. Those are the two aspects where the movie really succeeds. There are buildings falling, earth shattering, running/flying/jumping from fire, tsunamis, and many, many more visually enticing sequences with very impressive effects. If these scenes were backed up with realistic and less caricature characters and story development, these scenes would feel far more intense. Instead, these scenes were good to look at only, but not believable. And considering 2012 knowledge is quickly becoming more widespread, it would have been an easy opportunity for the filmmakers to dig into the existing fears of the audience and create drama they could connect with.

Impressive effects and action sequences overshadow the story, characters, and talented actors. Although the movie was not as realistic or dramatic as it could have been, perhaps it can calm the audience's mind on just how real the 2012 predictions are. If the movie would not take the predictions seriously and made a mostly humorous action movie, perhaps the real 2012 should not be taken too seriously either. And if it does turn out to be real, we can only hope to be as unrealistically lucky as some of the characters in this movie.