It feels like missing the point to talk about "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" as a movie. This is a pop culture phenomenon, some weird early 21st century aberration, our equivalent of the hula hoop or dancing the Charleston on a biplane's wing. In the future, people will watch this second installment of "The Twilight Saga" and think, "What was that?" without realizing that this movie is not really a movie. It's an excuse for a lot of people to dream.
So expect this film to satisfy its fans. Everybody else, get ready for a bizarre soap opera/pageant, consisting of a succession of static scenes with characters loping into the frame to announce exactly what they're thinking. Then they spell out their personalities for us. Here is an emotionally tortured vampire. Here is a perky, friendly vampire. And don't forget the vampire who is a dedicated physician.
Meanwhile, every so often - but never more than two or three times per minute - one of the characters makes a point of telling the perfectly nice, perfectly average teenage protagonist (Kristen Stewart) that she is the greatest thing on Earth. Sometimes it's Dad who tells her. Sometimes it's an enemy, who still recognizes our heroine's amazing power. Most of the time, it's some ridiculously handsome teenage boy. ... And each time that happens, 500 girls in the audience scream.
Let's just say it: It's great there's a movie that makes teenage girls scream. Half the movies Hollywood makes are designed to make teenage boys scream, and those boy movies are just as ridiculous and a lot nastier than "New Moon."
Still, when you come face to face with the source of all the screaming, it's hard not to laugh. We get a suffering James Dean in whiteface, the teenage vampire named Edward (Robert Pattinson), who adores Bella (Stewart). But he can't kiss her without moaning and turning colors, because if he loses control he might open up one of her veins. Edward has been a teenager for almost a hundred years, and he's still no good at it.
Then there's Jacob (Taylor Lautner), an American Indian with a bodybuilder's physique. He's more of a pal, but at several points he wants to kiss her, too. ... Ahh, but he can't let himself go, either, for other reasons. First-kiss anxiety looms great in this film.
In addition, there's lots of naïve conversation about what will happen in 50 years, when Bella is old and Edward, an immortal, is still young. Surprisingly, there's no conversation at all about what's going to happen when Bella is, say, 21, and the idea of dating a guy who can only kiss her - and even then, not without going into spasms - becomes less than completely satisfying.
Based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer, "New Moon" gets off to a quiet start, but the general direction of the story reveals itself when Edward (for noble reasons) breaks off the relationship with Bella. To any outsider, this seems like the best solution to a ridiculous situation, but poor Bella. She's miserable, and what's worse, once you date a vampire, it's apparently like joining the Mafia. They don't just let you quit. So most of the movie is about Bella's getting over the relationship, as she establishes a deeper friendship with Jacob, wards off nightmares and prepares herself for the inevitable onslaught of evil vampires, who want to kill her if only because she is, apparently, so, so amazing.
In places, especially at the beginning, "New Moon" has the feeling of a retread, but to its credit, it's never an unpleasant experience, and at well over two hours, it's never really boring, either, just intermittently ridiculous: "You give me everything by breathing!" Edward tells Bella.
Here and there, when the script gets away from two-person discussions of Bella's epic splendidness, director Chris Weitz gets to put together a nice sequence. A few years ago, when he directed "The Golden Compass," Weitz seemed uncomfortable operating on a big canvas. But a scene in Volterra, Italy, in which Bella races up the streets of that hill town in search of Edward - as hundreds of people in red march in an annual festival - is assured, striking and effective. There are some werewolf scenes that aren't bad, either, but enough said about that.
Alexandre Desplat's overwrought musical score will appeal to viewers who already agree that Bella and Edward's love is glorious. Others won't be persuaded, no matter how much he insists.
-- Advisory: Strong language, peril, mild violence and scenes of a guy falling apart every time he kisses Kristen Stewart.
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