The main feeling I had while watching this film was confusion. If you recall from last time's ramblings, Bella has a friend called Jacob who is also a werewolf (along with her science teacher, who is a mummy, and her plumber, who is the Thing from the Black Lagoon). What confuses me is this: Jacob is the good guy. The Good Guy. Scratch that, Jacob is the perfect guy. The movie goes out of its way to make him the hero.
Let me 'splain. No, is too long, let me sum up: Edward leaves about fifteen minutes into the film and, while angelic choirs descended from on high to perform a deafening Hallelujah Chorus, I was gloriously, madly happy. As happy as one can be while watching Twilight film. I was mildly disgruntled. Nay, I was downright apathetic.
Jacob actually acts like a teenager. So Bella acts like a teenager. They act like two teenagers who like each other having doofy, awkward, teenage conversations. At no point do either of them act like stalkers, serial killers, the victims of stalkers and serial killers, or, once again, fucking serial killers. And I was confused because I was all "But isn't Edward meant to be super-special and glittery and amazing and don't we all just love the way he passive-agressively threatens to rip his beloved's throat out?" And Stephenie Meyer would say "Yes" and then probably something about Mormons. But the movie says "No! You though that? You fool!" And then I say, "Well, I didn't actually think that, I was being facetious...." and the movie says "Shut up, Jacob is great. Team Jacob." And I say, "Yes, I agree. Jacob is great." And then I stop trying to having an imaginary conversation with fiction and tell you why. Using exclamation marks.
Jacob fixes motorbikes and cars and other things that involve oil!
Jacob is the only person who can cheer Bella up when she goes into a three month depression because her boyfriend dumps her!
Jacob has a smile that makes rainbows melt!
Jacob is concerned for Bella's wellbeing from a respectable distance!
Jacob has abs that just won't quit!
Jacob clearly has feelings for Bella but won't act on them until she has healed from the scars of a mentally abusive relationship found peace within herself!
JACOB IS A GODDAMN WEREWOLF!
Of course, in a series where vampires sparkle, one could predict that they weren't ever going to be proper werewolves that howled at the moon and committed vicious, gruesome murders but actually, they're pretty cool. While the Twilight VampMeyers will forever be the butt of many, many jokes that involve glitter when they turn up at the Vampire Family Reunions, she actually does an alright job with werewolves. Jacob explains (as firelight glints off his eyes, so dark, so mysterious, so brooding, looking into my very soul... sorry) that his tribe (of tastefully handled Native Americans, remember?) have the ability to shape shift into big, fuck-off wolves in order to defend innocents against vampires. I want you all to read that bit in italics again. Defend innocents against vampires. Not in order to hunt down helpless creatures. Not in order to be generally better or stronger or smarter. Not even in order to have awesome werewolf parties. To defend the helpless. Against the creatures are trying to murder humans horribly. Werewolves are the Supermans of the Twilight universe. So WHY, WHY IN HEAVEN'S NAME, ARE THE VAMPIRES THE GOOD GUYS?
URGH.
Anyway, Jacob continues to be everything one could want from a funny, warm werewolf who fixes cars and also has biceps the size of my fist, and Kristen Stewart is very tentatively learning how to convey basic human emotions through things like facial expression and vocal variation and the whole thing is making little Bambi steps towards something not totally awful when BAM. ALICE SHOWS UP. BOO.
And the first thing she does? She's rude to Jacob. Because he's a werewolf. So we can add mythological racism to the list of things I dislike about the Cullens in general.
But then - cue Incoming Teenage Girl alert - OMG OMG OMG Bella and Jacob are totally going to get it on, steamy werewolf make-out sesh in the kitchen, right here right now, off we go – THE PHONE RINGS.
IT'S EDWARD. OF COURSE. DAMN YOU EDWARD CULLEN.
COCKBLOCKING FROM FIVE STATES AWAY.
Not that I care. Stupid movie.
So then we get to grit our teeth through the introduction of Mr Right (On Opposites Day, maybe. Zing.) back into the plot, as Edward pouts, whines and nances his way back onto the screen. Through some hideous plot contrivance, he thinks Bella is dead. So he's going to kill himself. I imagine you're expecting me to make some catty remark about Meyer being egocentric enough to think she can re-write Romeo and Juliet but I won't. Because in the opening scene, Bella and Edward are watching Romeo and Juliet in class. So it's self-referential, see? It's a clever nod. It's not in any way, say, a screamingly lazy and unconvincing rip-off because Meyer can't write for shit, no, not at all.
OH WAIT, IT'S EXACTLY THAT. PUTTING IN A GLANCING REFERENCE TO THE MOST FAMOUS LOVE STORY OF ALL TIME DOES NOT LESSEN THE FACT THAT YOU ARE RIPPING IT OFF WHOLESALE.
My favourite bit - and by 'favourite', I mean, 'sent me into paroxysms of manic laughter while I tried to destroy the laptop I was watching it on by eating it' - is when Edward declares that Romeo and Juliet were "kind of stupid". I'm not actually going to comment on that because it just might make me cry.
So then we get introduced to some famous super-duper vampires called the Volturi because they live in Volterra in Italy and wait – is that...Michael Sheen? What the hell are you doing here? Jeez, I know you like being fabulous, Michael Sheen, but c'mon man. I saw you play Hamlet. Don't do this to me. I thought we were friends.
Edward's suicide plan involves these special vampires and is also - as though I need to say it - fucking stupid. He's going to reveal the existence of vampires to the human race and then the Volturi will have to kill him because they're some kind of vampire police or something, I guess. That's not (really) the stupid part. The stupid part is the manner in which he will reveal himself. He's going to sparkle. In public. With intent.
Now, if I saw a sparkling naked man in the middle of the street, I would probably just think “My, there is a particularly flamboyant gentleman enjoying his day. Be on your way, flamboyant gentleman, and godspeed to you.” I would not think “VAMPIRES ARE REAL.”
So then we get the world's shittiest action sequence, in which the object is not to defuse a bomb or save a small child from a burning building, but to prevent a pale man from stepping into the sunlight. And believe me, it is exactly as insultingly poor as it sounds.
Bella stops him, obviously. Nobody cares. Not a single fuck do I give.
However, they are summoned before the Volturi again under imminent threat of being brutally and satisfyingly slaughtered. I daren't hope. And, sure enough, instead of doing the world a favour and slaughtering Bella, Edward and Alice in a bloody carnage of righteousness, the Volturi let them go because – I cannot even – they vaguely promise to turn Bella into a vampire at some point in the future. And that's it. There's not even a deadline. Just...*shrug* “well, I believe them”, “sure, me too”, “sweet, let's go get tacos”.
Oh, and then we hear the screams of hundreds of innocent tourists being devoured for the Volteri's supper and Bella Swan, role model of a generation, winces. Yeah, you must really feel for all those lives lost. There were children in there. I hate you, Bella Swan. I really hate you.
Back in Forks, some other stuff happens but I don't really have the heart to go into detail. There's a showdown between Jacob and Edward but obviously Edward wins because Meyer is a cruel god and wishes to teach us that sometimes bad stories happen to good characters. Oh yeah, and Edward forces Bella to agree to marry him as the price of vamp-dom. The only other thing I've come across where someone marries their abuser is Atonement. Maybe Ian McKewan should have written Twilight.
Also there's this whole plot I didn't even mention about Victoria, the girl-vampire from the last film, but it's so pointless and stupid, it would just insult you to mention it.
Sigh. Overall New Moon made me pouty and sleepy. It started out so good when it was just me and Jacob - sorry - Bella and Jacob kicking back with motorbikes and cool werewolf stories and for a glorious, shining hour, all was well with the world. But life, my children, is a harsh and unforgiving business, and sometimes facially-inexpressive-yet-ultimately-innocent women do not get to live happily ever after. Sometimes bad men come back and work evil spells that involve transparent plagiarism of the Western literary canon, and good men can do nothing, no matter how bitchin' their wolf transformation powers are. Sometime, sometimes, my loves, we get New Moon.
Twilight made me angry. This just made me sad. And a little bit hungry.
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