Midnight opening tickets sold out weeks in advance. Matinee events quickly filled to capacity, giddy teenagers hugged pails of popcorn in one hand and their moms in the other. Everyone was out to see the most anticipated movie event of 2009, “New Moon.”Featuring heartthrobs Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and additional young stud Taylor Lautner, “New Moon” is the sequel to “Twilight,” both adaptations of the best-selling books by Stephenie Meyer.In this installment, Bella has just had her 18th birthday. She hangs with her friends in high school, but remains smitten with Edward, her vampire boyfriend. Fearing for her safety, Edward leaves town and swears he won’t come back to see her, lest she be taken from him forever.Depressed, Bella sits on a couch as a revolving camera shot — digitally spliced — denotes the passage of time: November, December and on. When she gets tired of being alone, Bella decides to hook up with childhood friend Jacob. He plays the rebound guy, the one-month, romantic squatter who keeps the apartment occupied until the original tenant returns. The relationship between Bella, Jacob and Edward turns to a love triangle, which, lacking in sex, seems less subversive than geometric.”New Moon” is a meditation on growing old and the strength of familial ties. Bella’s devotion to Edward might seem evident and her insistence on going under the fang appears a form of self-sacrifice. However, several scenes point to a despair of aging, a fascination with skin devoid of wrinkles. One scene has Bella staring apprehensively at an older image of herself, an aged woman who mimics all her motions and speaks in her voice. Another has Bella boasting to Edward she’s technically a year older than he is. It’s curious she only dates wolves and vampires, creatures with the elixir of life, boys who revel in their naturally endowed armor-plated breast plates.We see the tension within the wolf and vampire communities and anticipate the conflict between these communities and a world unaware of their existence. It is through membership in these groups that Jacob, Edward and their families get their identities. Hence, the mutual animosity.I doubt anyone expects the “New Moon” to be a cinematic marvel. The books by Meyer, after all, are a cultural phenomena, a literary curiosity less J.R.R. Tolkien and more Dan Brown. The “Twilight” series lack the pedigree of the “Lord of the Rings” or “Harry Potter.”Absent major character actors, the assurance of a distinguished director or a provocative theme, our expectations are modest.Nevertheless, the audience deserves a spectacle. Catherine Hardwicke directed “Twilight” which exuded a sense of fun. For instance, there were the scenes of a vampire baseball game and   Edward taking Bella tree climbing. Both contributed next to nothing to the overall story, but their addition in the film showed the director winking to the audience. But with the newest film, we have director Chris Weitz. Channeling an inner ineptitude displayed previously in “The Golden Compass,” Weitz has transformed a mildly fascinating vampire romance into a flaccid exercise in overwrought melodrama. Weitz smoothed the provocative atheistic bent of “The Golden Compass” and tacked on tons of CGI, finally releasing offal barely recognizable from the source material — an example of the anti-Midas touch. “New Moon” bears the same signature. Here we get two fight scenes shot in slow-motion — Guy Ritchie’s technique without the exuberance — and a general lack of imagination. Weitz assumes shooting Stewart moping into space  somehow illustrates the loneliness of her character. It could be argued the long stares were the effect the author strove for in her book; even if true, it doesn’t give the filmmaker the license to be literal.Freke Ette is a political  theory graduate student from Uyo, Nigeria. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_fette.
 
 
 
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