A disclaimer: I have read ALL the Twilight books. I loved them. I also love fanfiction, so you know, same diff. I own Twilight on dvd, and now I am the proud owner of New Moon. I'm proud of this, because that means that I have ENDURED this RIDICULOUS movie, AND paid real American money for it. If Twilight, or EXTREMELY LONG RECAPS isn't your cup of plasma, I have put the recap under the jump, so just click through to get to the snark, or carry on with your day, thanking little Jeebie in his Pack and Play that you didn't have to watch New Moon, or, as I like to call it, The Most Unintentionally Hilarious Film of All Time. Let's go!
We open, of course, with a moon. This, I learned from the three minutes of the commentary that I endured before realizing that it was just the filmmakers congratulating themselves for the entirety of the movie, was to let the audience of tweenies scream their fool heads off before the movie actually began. Good plan, guys! Thankfully, there are no tweenies in my living room. I had the exterminator in last week. On with the show!
Bella voiceovers about violence and being consumed as we jump from her running through a crowd of red-clad Italians as a clock strikes twelve, to her running through the woods into the field wherein we saw Edward sparkle in the first film. She spies an older lady on the other side of the field and mutters "Gran?" and I have to take this opportunity to speak a little about Bella Swan/Kristen Stewart, because she drives me batshit insane.
In the books, Bella Swan is a pretty sassy chick. She's clumsy, she's not one of the super popular kids, she's relate-able. We LIKE her. We do not LIKE Bella in the movies, because Kristen Stewart has two emotions: "mildly pissed off" and "severely constipated." The girl cannot stand up straight to save her life, which would give MY grandmother apoplexy, because good posture is very important, and she speaks in a monotone that gives the impression that she would rather be doing anything, anything at all, other than acting. She seems put off by the whole idea of acting, which, yanno, is grand for AN ACTOR. Anyway, I hate her. On we go!
So Gran is Bella and Bella is Gran, we learn in this obvious dream sequence, symbolizing the fact that Bella will age and wither and die and Sir Sparklepants will not, as he appears, sparkly as ever, to wish Bella a happy birthday, and kiss Bella/Gran's hand. They do not properly kiss, because ew, old people cooties.
Bella awakes, with a strategically placed copy of Romeo and Juliet next to her head, as her dad Charlie, one of the characters in the movie that we actually LIKE, knocks on her door to wish her a happy birthday. Bella, of course, does not thank him graciously like you do when your socially awkward Dad comes bearing gifts, but instead mumbles something about not accepting presents on this, her eighteenth birthday. Instead of telling her to go screw, Charlie hands her two presents, a camera and a scrapbook, so Bella can document her senior year of high school, yanno, with her friends that she barely tolerates and her boyfriend, Mr. Sulky Sparkles. What a thoughtful gift, which Bella mumbles barely a "thank you" for, because Bella hates everything and everyone, except Mr. Sparkles. Charlie makes a cute joke about how old Bella is now, and asks her if that's a gray hair he sees? Bella wigs, and runs to the mirror to make sure she didn't turn into Gran.
Cut to Bella's awesome truck, with a radio announcement that there have been UNEXPLAINED KILLINGS in the area, which you would think the people of Forks would be used to, being that it's crawling with vampires and werewolves, (oops, spoiler!) and some gloomy doomy song plays. She pulls up to the school parking lot, wherein her "friends" whom she hates, greet her and say it's a big day. Bella is immediately pissed, as she thinks they are talking about her birthday, because she's a self-centered bint, but no, they're talking about the Romeo and Juliet essay that's due. Burn!
Bella then moans that she got this awesome new digital camera and that she's supposed to take pictures of her "friends" to have a scrapbook. Her friends oblige, the one who was in "Up In The Air" actually smiles, because she's a real actress and totally slumming in this flick, and Bella mopily takes a picture of these people she can't stand.
Vroom! Comes a Volvo, that ever-so-sexy brand of car, and Bella's "friends" roll their eyes so hard they look at their own brainstems as they announce that Captain Glitter is here. This perks Bella up, but just a tiny bit, don't worry, she's still miserable,
HAHAHAHAAHHA! We get a swear to god, slow motion shot of Eddie Sparkles sauntering from his Volvo (that's a product placement, so go ahead and drink for that, as well as for the slow-mo) to Bella, where they have a mumbled conversation about her birthday, her woes about aging, and his counterpoint that he's 109 years old, and 18 really isn't that big of a deal, you self-centered whiny brat. They make kissyface, which makes Eddie angsty, of course, and he drones about getting to class.
THANKFULLY at this moment, Senor Cranky notices that Bella has an off-camera visitor, and mopes off. We hear the lively (thank christ) voice of Jacob, who has come to wish Bella a happy birthday and give her a present. It's a dream catcher, because Jacob is Native American, and that's all Native American people do in cliche-land. They just dump dream catchers on anyone who stands still long enough.
We cut to Jacob, who...whoa. Okay, they have wedged this wig onto Taylor Lautner's head, and it not only looks like it's WAY too tight and cutting off blood circulation to his brain, but also hasn't been properly groomed, and it's AWFUL. Awful. Not as bad as Victor's in "Smoke Signals" which is an actual GOOD movie that you should rent, but still wicked pissah horrible. Poor TayTay. He makes a jab at Bella for not hanging out with him and his mighty biceps more often, and gives her a hug as he stares daggers at Eddie Sulkypants. At this moment, I love Jacob. Don't worry, the script will ruin him promptly.
Inside the school, Edward whines that Jacob got to give Bella a present and he didn't. She doesn't have anything to give back to him. He says her breathing is enough. I feel bile start to rise.
Alice arrives! It's Alice, everyone! My favorite character, yay! She squeals "Happy Birthday" to Bella, who, of course, tells her to shush, and OH MY GOD, Bella, NO ONE at school CARES that it's your stupid birthday. Have a little gratitude for the people who DO. She gives Bella a prezzie and tells her to wear it tonight to the Cullen house for a little party. Bella does not want to do any such thing, and is ready to say just that when we cut to Jasper Scissorhands, he of the unending torment and puppy eyes, who is magically controlling Bella's mood in order to get her to say yes, which she does, scolding Jasper as he exits with Alice. Bye, Alice! I miss you already!
Cut to a class watching Romeo and Juliet on teevee as Bella and Edward chatter on rudely, she fishes for compliments as Eddie waxes about how AWESOME SUICIDE IS, and how humans have SO many options to off themselves, and that when James bit Bella in the last movie, Edward had decided that if she died, he'd kill himself by going to Italy and pissing off the Volturi, who are like the mob bosses of vampireland. He couldn't just WALK INTO THE SUN, of course, because in Twilight, vampires don't burst into ash when they hit sunlight, they just get shiny. Oy vey.
Obvious joke about the teacher calling out the chatterboxes on not paying attention and Eddie dramatically and angstily quoting the entire death scene in Romeo and Juliet, which, of course, he knows backwards and forwards. Moving on.
At the Cullens, we learn that the Volturi are total badasses, royalty to vampires, and that Carlyle ran with them for a while. We go on to learn that being a vamp is a SEKRIT, and if you let the cat out of the bag that you're a vamp, the Volturi rip you limb from limb. It's kinda like suicide by cop. Bella doesn't want to talk about it. Eddie says that the only thing that could hurt him is Bella, and she's all "Um, except Victoria, who is crazy and wants to kill them all due to the killing of her boyfriend in the last movie. Eddie doesn't sweat this, cause Alice's super psychic powers will tell them when Vicki's coming, and they'll be ready. Hopefully not in the middle of a baseball game this time, because it was utterly impossible to take that scene in Twilight seriously with the entire Cullen clan attempting to be badass in baseball jerseys.
Bella wants Eddie to vamp her out. Edward wants to protect her. She's the only thing that he "lives" for, but there's one thing he can't protect her from, and that's his sisters. Ha. Ha. Alice (Hi, Alice!!!) skippers in to chirp that it's time for the party, yay. Bella looks like she hasn't pooped in a week.
Enter the Cullens! They all greet her warmly except Rosalie, who still hates her, and Alice takes pictures with Bella's pilfered camera as the fam gives her presents. Bella does not even come close to cracking a smile. What she DOES crack is her finger due to a papercut from the wrapping paper of her present, and Jasper Scissorhands takes one sniff of that deeeelicious O+ and goes BERSERKO, leaping at Bella to hopefully tear her snivelling head off. There's a slow-mo fight scene (drink) wherein Edward throws Bella out of the way and flings Jasper Scissorhands through the piano, but everything gets worse when Bella OF COURSE gets a gigantic wound from hitting the side table Eddie threw her into, and now everyone except Zen Master Carlyle is jonesing for blood. Alice hungrily apologizes and drags Jasper out of the room, and all the others except Carlyle and Edward follow them out, because it's wicked bad manners to eat the guest, even when she's a pouty little bleeder who I hate.
Carlyle stitches up Bella, and I'll take this opportunity to tell you that you can own your very own replica of Bella's birthday dress at your local Hot Topic. I'll give you a moment to go to the Hot Topic website and max out your credit card on that. All you need to know is that Bella wants to be a vamp, and Carlyle says they're all damned, no matter how vegetarian they go, so does she want that? Hmm???
Continued in PART TWO
