I seem to have seen a lot of films this year. Add together four long-haul flights, a film festival, a weekly screening via Wellington Film Society, and a few one-offs and the total is in the 50s at least! Nearly all of those films were better than the one I saw last night - New Moon (as in Twilight).
I wandered into the first Twilight movie with no prior knowledge of the books or the film and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I thought it was visually accomplished, and had fun with its teen-angst premise.
It harnessed the simple dynamism of a teen formula - at the beginning, the girl's parents split up and she moves somewhere new; at the end, there's a prom - and added, well, you know, vampires. And it pulled it off.
New Moon, on the other hand, was just a bit boring and silly. It meandered around without anything really seeming to happen for long periods, then burst into life with foolishly implausible action that made very little sense (what the hell was all that stuff about going to Italy?). I honestly can't recall a movie that lacked a sense of urgency or direction to quite this extent.
Similarly, the special effects were massively over-emphasised during action sequences at the expense of narrative sense or progression. What should have been exciting and blood-pounding action - a pack of really pissed off werewolves chasing a vampire through thick woods - was somehow a yawn-fest.
I hope they do a better job next time - but I doubt I'll be rushing to the cinema to find out.
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