Tuesday, 24 November 2009

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Film Fans

Gavin Reeve-Daniels

Twilight: New Moon

Robert Pattinson, Kristin Stewart and a newly-buff Taylor Lautner are back in New Moon, the much-anticipated sequel to Twilight

Taylor Lautner, Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Chris Weitz at the New Moon premiere

OK, so I have to admit I'm not what you'd call a Twi-Hard. I'm definitely not a teenage girl and I haven't read a single line from any of the books.

But I have seen both Twilight and New Moon in the last seven days - and now I'm hooked.

If you're the other person in the world who hasn't read the books, and you don't know the plot off by hand, look away now, because there are spoilers ahead...

New Moon picks up where Twilight ended. We're back in Forks and Bella Swan (Kristin Stewart) is still mooning over 109-year-old vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a man so pale even goths have to avert their eyes.

But then he dumps her. Sniff.

Cue months of Bella moping in her bedroom before she decides, with a little parental nudging from dad, that she should hang out with Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) and build motorbikes.

Jacob fancies Bella something rotten, but she still sees him as a little boy. Then he takes his top off and the whole film changes.

Any fears that Taylor wouldn't be buff enough to carry off Jacob's transformation from young boy to giant werewolf thing were misplaced. When Taylor stripped off, there was an audible gasp in the auditorium, followed by an uncomfortable silence, as every woman over 18 in the crowd went through same moral dilemma - is it wrong to fancy a 17 year old? (If it helps, he's 18 in February).

Will Bella choose Jacob over Edward? Let's weigh up the options:
One is 16, hot (literally, like a hot water bottle) and in Forks.
The other is 109, only appears as a ghost-like cloud to dish out advice, and is miles away.

Of course there's more to the film than an unrequited love triangle. There's fights, car chases, buckets of unrequited love, lingering kisses and even the word ‘marshmallow' used as an insult. There's also loads of werewolf and vampire ‘lore' explained, with the wolf pack providing the six-packs and ubervamps, the Volturi, delivering the scares.

After all the action's over, Bella demands that someone turn her into a vampire (as if she needed to get any paler) but Edward's not keen. But then two little words beginning with ‘m' at the very end sets everything up nicely for the next film...

Three things I learnt from New Moon:
1. It rains more in Forks than anywhere else in the world.

2. Bella never drives her own truck when there's a boy who can drive it for her.

3. Vampires fly Virgin America. Whether this is a subliminal message from Stephanie Meyer about teen abstinence we'll never know.