By Shelly Williams/managing editor
A successful relationship doesn’t come without its struggles, especially when those struggles involve mythical creatures.
Continuing Stephenie Meyer’s book series, the Twilight Saga, the movie New Moon almost follows the book to a tee. Like any movie based off a book, parts were missing, but moviemakers can only fit so much of a book into two hours.
Confrontation begins when tragedy disrupts Bella Swan’s (Kristen Stewart) birthday bash, triggering the bloodlust of the newest Cullen vegetarian vampire, Jasper (Jackson Rathbone). Being the protective vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) goes on the defensive and strikes Jasper down, showing the family and Bella that the party is over for the night.
The next day is filled with silence as Edward crushes Bella’s heart with a breakup, as seen in the previews, that’s hard to watch for any Twilight fan girl.
Thinking he is protecting Bella and she deserves better, he leaves her. As she falls into despair and becomes withdrawn for months, like any relatable first-love breakup, she finds comfort in a friend.
Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), a shape-shifting Native American, quickly becomes her confidant. Trouble happens when he too falls for the clumsy girl. However, heartache comes again when Jacob changes into a wolf and becomes afraid of his own strength.
Once more, Bella is left alone for her own protection. The only good things about the wolf relationship scenes are the graphics and the many shirtless images of Jacob. It’s as though he is basically bragging about how he managed to save his job for this sequel, but the bare skin does help portray him as part of the wolf clan when they’re in human form. The bragging rights are well-earned for any star who works out every day and gains 30 pounds of protein to make the plot stay true to the book.
It’s here that Bella begins to fight back, realizing that only she can decide who she wants in her life and what’s best for her. She becomes an adrenaline junkie just to hear Edward’s voice and see him in an hallucination.
Crazy, yes, but Juliet would have done anything just to be with her Romeo.
With Jacob, she confronts his wolf clan, an easier task than dealing with the loss of Edward.
The real drama begins, like any old rivalry seen in other movies, with the tension between wolf and vampire. Filled with plenty of action and fight scenes, the film might have enough to impress the dragged-along boyfriend.
However, the love triangle encounters more obstacles such as vampire laws and ethics and another crazed vampire out for revenge against Edward and Bella.
Packed with as much detail from the book as possible and filled with aspects from every genre of movie — comic relief, action, romance, drama and thriller — the film is a definite must-see. It’ll make butterflies swarm in the stomachs of girls, yet guys still get the benefit of seeing Edward beaten up.
