Bye Bye Adelaide
For now at least… One month away from the atrociously hot weather.
OMG, New Moon was beyond expectations. Also because Twilight was such a letdown before, unless you’re a die-hard fan. Chris Weitz did a much better job with New Moon. Catharine Hardwicke was an indie filmmaker, Chris directs for the masses. And this time, he did not stick too closely to the books (like the earlier Harry Potter films, which spoils everything). OMG, the ending was the best, best, best. And the wolves, =). Taylor surpassed my expectations, he was a wonderful actor in here. In fact, all of them were great, allowing for heaps of close up face shots of the expressions which I love. Daniel Radcliffe just can’t do it so it always irks me when I watch Harry Potter because they shoot everyone’s faces except his!!! The only times we catch a glimpse of his face, he’s expressionless. *sigh* LOTR had heaps of close up shots as well, especially the eyes, and I think these convey far more of the story than the panoramic views and battle sequences. That’s why Taylor was a pleasant surprise because even though his eyes were quite deep set and hard to discern, he still managed it superb-ly. I am so Team Jacob for this film. Fickle, I know but Edward was so tortured throughout the film, it just makes me cringe (I feel tortured as well) every time he comes on. But he saved himself in the last few minutes of the story. I think he will do a complete turnaround in the next film and take charge. It would be good to see a more lively Edward next time round. Plus, the soundtrack fitted the movie beautifully, I cannot like a film with a bad soundtrack. That’s why I am always for movies with specially composed soundtracks and New Moon not being a big budget film, I was dreading the background music because the soundtrack was basically just songs from various artistes (although they were good songs). The first one didn’t exactly fit the mood, and I was very skeptical about this second one especially when most of them sounded so dreary and country music-like. But again, I was surprised. Lykke-Li’s song was the only one a recognised and remembered. =P
So, for those who were thinking whether New Moon is worth watching in the cinema, I’d say, go for it. We get to see the CGI wolves fighting the rogue vampires and I guess that kinda made me forgive Robert’s fighting sequence. Seriously, the wolves, go watch them. =)
Haha…. I guess my kind of film review goes more into the technicalities rather than whether it was an entertaining story plot or not. But I’m pretty most people will know the story (or would have read the gist of it somewhere), so there is no need to expound on all the different aspects of the plot. I will say this however, whoever they are (producers, director, screenwriter), they have managed to adapt the book perfectly for the screen, which is very important because most of the time, books to screen adaptations very easily fall short, especially those that try to stay true to the book. I never like it when they say ‘We’ve stayed true to the book’ because that usually means that they’ve basically transcribed the whole thing (dialogs, sequence of events etc) into a script. And I don’t think it works for films, you have to change things, mix up the subplots, make it work for you. When Melissa (the screenwriter) was signed on to do both the second and third scripts, I wasn’t looking forward to it because the first film followed everything through and so nothing felt fresh. Plus New Moon is my least favourite book of the series, it was absolutely tedious to plough through and I had to skip to the back to make sure Edward was really coming back (and soon) so that I would persevere. I will credit the director for making this adaptation work, because it did. I thought the middle bit would bore me to tears, instead, I found that these were the best moments.
