In a belated but obligatory effort to keep up with the mainstream, I finally watched New Moon. It was Saturday night, I was two glasses of wine deep, my cat was on my lap, and it just seemed fitting.
I had seen Twilight and found it entertaining in that sort of one night stand, sit back and let it happen without too much scrutiny kind of way. I wasn't expecting anything great, and it was something to do.
Refusing to read the books, I'm told that there is quite a bit more to these stories than meets the eye on the big screen. This is somewhat encouraging because otherwise I'd be seriously concerned for this generation of teens. If all I had to look forward to was the cinematic stylings of Bella and Edward, I'd be sexting too.
While no one could possibly be mad at the overabundance of boy abs (but seriously, Taylor Lautner, eat a bagel, bro), Edward and Jacob look like lesbians. I realize that pubescent girls/gays and unfulfilled soccer moms everywhere just cringed, but I'd like to point out that Edward wears more make-up than I do. The man sparkles for Christ's sake. He's not a sex-symbol, he's a My Little Pony.
Jacob is feisty and all, but Michael J. Fox was a more convincing wolf, and at least he partied and could slam dunk. And seriously, the wolf graphics? Jacob basically morphs into a cartoon. Considering the budget for this movie, it was really pretty audacious.
The most vacuous, pouty-lipped, behind-the-ear hair-tucking disaster is, sigh, Bella. In the deepest sense of the word, I just CANNOT figure out why I should root for her as a protagonist. She's basically as boring as sugar-free vanilla pudding, and, as far as I can tell, does nothing but constantly bleed in an apparent homage to the Russian Royal Family. It's just plain inconvenient considering the company she keeps.
She assigns all of her self-worth and self-esteem to whichever other-worldly dude will stay by her side the most fervently. When there's a guy around, she's elated and stable (but remarkably, still pouts with the same frequency), when there's not, she's suicidal. A truly responsible message to relay to teenage girls.
I get that high school can be painstaking when you don't "fit in" but, like, join the photography club or play an instrument or something. All I want is a reason to believe that she's as enamoring as she's supposed to be, and not the girl in gym class who gets smacked in the face with a volleyball and runs crying to the nurse.
To summarize, the two hottest guys in the history of high school and other vampires/creatures that predate Bella by, like, hundreds of years are captivated and fighting for scraps of her glazed-over, sulky attention. And I don't have the slightest idea why.
The only hope I have is that post-nuptially, Edward will turn Bella and she'll be slightly more interesting as a vampire, or at the very least, require fewer rescues. It's not like she was doing much with her soul anyway.
