I saw the first Twilight because I was forced to; I saw this movie because I have a deep seated hatred for myself.  I long for the days when Vampire movies showcased the unrelenting horror of a predator clad in human skin, the frightening beast that feeds on our life to fuel its own unholy existence.  That experienced a brief revival with the masterful 30 Days of Night, but the genre has once again shifted to the angst ridden vampire we all know and detest.

New Moon is an abysmal film, building upon the failure of the first and amplifying all that was wrong to an absurd degree.  The acting from our two leads, Kristen Steward as Bella Swan and Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen, continues to be wooden and uninspired.  I felt like I was watching two robots trying in vain to simulate a human conversation rather than two actors portraying a destructive and torrid romance. 

The message of true love from the first continues, opening with a shot of Bella lying asleep next to a copy of Romeo and Juliet which immediately triggered my gag reflex.  Comparing this cinematic cancer to a great work of literature is simply offensive, my friends.  Coupled with the morose lighting, washed out color palate and further annoying acting by Bella’s high school friends the movie already seems like a chore. 

This could be forgiven, however if there was enough action between the brooding melodrama, but again the movie falls flat here.  Refusing to show us any true fight scenes that don’t end in childish bitching, coupled with a soundtrack that can only be described as atonal moaning, New Moon manages to suck what little life there could be from the film.  An apt metaphor, I know.

Jacob exists for her to toy with and manipulate into fixing two motorcycles, as well as to provide what can only be described as soft core gay porn flashes for the female audience. The plot, what little there is, plods in this over two hour abomination.  There’s literally nothing at all to keep you interested in this film.  We’ve entered the cliché the all vampire romances seem to fall prey to, that the monster and the maiden cannot be together for fear of one hurting the other.  Edward leaves and Bella becomes a sobbing, shrieking wreck. 

This has been done before and done far, far better. It’s at this point the movie tries to make us empathize with Bella’s pain but again falls flat, instead showing her bleating like a dying goat and clutching her stomach in pain.  Bella jumps on the emo-kid horse and rides it to death as we’re shown a montage of how alone and miserable she is. 

Christ almighty, I’d be happy if carnage and gore were shown even once in this mess, but again we’re simply treated to emo whining.  Token plot device Alice acts as the go-between for Edward and Bella, eventually leading to a trip to Italy where Edward plans to kill himself, due to thinking Bella’s dead.  I forgot to mention that during this there’s a subplot of the female vampire from the previous film coming after Bella for revenge, which of course goes straight the fuck to nowhere.  Shoehorned in are Jacob and his Native American werewolves, used as a metaphor for homosexuality, very badly I might add.

Yay contrived and stupid plot!  Yay idiotic paean to Romeo and Juliet!

It’s at this point we meet the Volturi, the prototypical Vampire Elders we’ve had in every piece of Vampire fiction since White Wolf started churning out game books.  This council is made up of an effeminate and over the top vampire, a bored Keith Richards looking vampire and a silent blonde vampire.  Oh, Dakota Fanning’s there too, to round out the bunch.  Don’t ask me why.

After revealing that now every vampire has a super power in addition to being eternally pretty and god almighty I’m praying for a meteor to impact on me.  Back to the torture, yes?  After a bullshit spiel about how Bella must now be killed because she knows too much, we have another fight scene with the vampires filmed in a mix of slo-mo and ultra-fast motion.  It sucked when 300 did it and it continues to suck here, eliciting a vague feeling of nausea from my stomach.

After that, the Volturi decide Bella must be made into a Vampire, upon which Bella tries to show emotion and again fails utterly at it.  We’re taken back to America, Bella’s rightfully grounded by her poor father andthe Cullens vote on if they should turn her or not.