In most other respects, the movie’s a drag - paced like a dirge and cursed with dialogue and a goopy musical score (Alexandre Desplat, how could you?) that bring out the book’s worst daytime soap tendencies. But what can you expect from an installment that keeps the central duo of human Bella and vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) apart for an extended 500-page sulk? Even my impromptu focus group (two adolescent daughters and one friend) voted “New Moon’’ the least involving of the four books.
In the film, Edward leaves Bella after a birthday party goes horribly wrong - funny what a little paper cut can do to a room full of vampires. Stewart’s an actress of narrow abilities, to put it kindly, but in “Twilight,’’ she worked beautifully within her limits, lighting up with newly discovered love. In “New Moon,’’ she’s playing a spurned and devastated woman, and Stewart just doesn’t have the skill set to do much more than stare woodenly into the middle distance.
Just when you’re about to give up on her, Lautner’s Jacob appears on the scene, helping Bella rebuild a junkyard motorcycle. (Why? So she can drive recklessly and somehow make the spirit of Edward appear to her. Trust me, kids, this does not work in real life.)
The raging hype around “New Moon’’ has divided the planet between Team Edward and Team Jacob, and everyone’s forced to take sides. On the basis of the movie itself, it’s not much of a contest. 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. Lautner’s performance, by contrast, has the warmth of an actual human. (And, yes, when he takes off his shirt to aide the wounded Bella, the crowd goes nuts.)
