Movie Review: New Moon

IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK, NEW MOON, AND YOU DO NOT WANT ANY SPOILERS, DO NOT READ THIS POST!!!

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I went to the 12:01am showing of New Moon this morning. My friend and I got to the movie theatre 2.5 hours early to get seats. To stay awake, because I worked all day at my job and didn’t get a nap before going to the theatre, I watched Twilight on my iPod.

I was a little leery going to the Midnight showing of New Moon because I was disappointed in the movie Twilight. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad The Twilight Saga is being made into a movie, but I thought Twilight was done very poorly. But I went to the the Midnight showing anyways because my best friend was going and I thought the experience would be fun.

Here are some of my thoughts about New Moon:

The special effects were well done. Edward’s “sparkling” was way better than in Twilight. It doesn’t look like he’s sweating. The Quileute's shifting into wolves was flawless. It didn’t look choppy at all. The CGI wolves were a little on the unrealistic side, but it didn’t ruin the movie for me. The special effects in Twilight really disappointed me. I thought the running and climbing of trees looked extremely fake.

The quality of the film was much better. New Moon didn’t have the shaky, indie feel that Twilight did. It looked like a well done Hollywood blockbuster. I think having a much bigger budget and a different director definitely helped.

The dialogue was a lot lighter and funnier. I found myself laughing out loud a lot throughout the movie. The script for New Moon wasn’t as moody as Twilight. The secondary characters were very witty. I especially loved Charlie, Bella’s dad and the Quileute boys.

The story line for the movie stayed very close to the book. Obviously when Hollywood turns a book into a movie, they embellish it. I thought the parts where the movie strayed from the book were appropriate and added to the plot.

The action scenes were intense. From the wolf fights (Paul and Jake), to the Volturi throw down (not in the book, but I thought it was pretty cool), the action sequences were really well choreographed. Not very realistic, but keep in mind that the wolves and the vampires are supernatural creatures. 

There was very little about the movie I didn’t like. I might even go see it again, because the teenage girls kept applauding and screaming at the beginning when Edward or Jacob came on scene. That was very annoying.

I recommend The Twilight Saga: New Moon to anyone who is a fan of the series and to those who are skeptical. In my opinion, New Moon was so well done, you don’t even need to be familiar with the books or watch Twilight first to know what’s going on.