It’s hard to imagine that a movie about a emo vampire and a werewolf fighting over the heart of some ugly chick wouldn’t be hailed and praised as one of the greatest movies of all time, so it’s no surprise that critics are singular in their praise of New Moon.
Chicago Sun-Times‘ Roger Ebert says “the characters in this movie should be arrested for loitering with intent to moan. Never have teenagers been in greater need of a jump-start. Granted some of them are more than 100 years old, but still: their charisma is by Madame Tussaud.”
Ty Burr of The Boston Globe remarks: “Sorry, girls: The thrill is gone.” He says that “where the first film’s director, Catherine Hardwicke, plugged into [author Stephenie] Meyer’s vision of supernatural teenage lust with abandon, Chris Weitz is stuck with a sequel that’s a morning-after mope-fest. “When he’s onscreen, Pattinson’s Edward is all emo posturing under a trembling bouffant – the actor suddenly seems to be embarrassed to be here,” says Burr. “Lautner’s performance, by contrast, has the warmth of an actual human.”
But Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times says Lautner and Kristen Stewart (who plays Bella) have no heat: “The connection between these two is so self-evidently non-romantic that it turns out not to be much of a diversion.”
USA Today‘s Claudia Puig agrees, saying the the Bella-Edward romance is a bore and that “the pace picks up” once Jacob and his pals turn into werewolves. She gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars.
Variety writes that ladies hoping to gaze at Pattinson the big screen ” may be disappointed by Pattinson’s reduced presence” in the sequel, “as his Edward appears predominantly in mumbling visions until a cliffhanger that brazenly sets up the next episode.”
Whatever. This movie will make more than Noriega because of tween cutters and 30-year old chicks with undead fetishes, so no amount to critical backlash will stop that. This movie could be called Madea Goes To Registered Sex Offender Class and as long as Robert Pattinson has a scene where he pouts and cries, the producers will need dragons and Hannibal’s elephants to carry all the money this crap is gonna make.
