BEFORE: Well, you can't say I wasn't warned about these movies. I'm already looking forward to being done with them, which makes it harder to add skip days and space them out until I hit the weekend - it's tempting to just race through them and be finished more quickly so I can move on to other films. But then again, maybe it's better to pace myself and do five "Twilight" films in seven days, better for my mental health and slightly better for my sleeping schedule. We'll see.
Speaking of health, I made a doctor's appointment for today because I've been feeling queasy in the mornings, I often get the dry-heaves after brushing my teeth, and I've been assuming that this was all somehow stress-related because it tends to occur as I'm thinking about what I need to do that day, but then I started getting stomach pain too, which I also assumed was stress-related. But then I took some antacid and felt better, so now I'm thinking I've got acid reflux again, and it's worse in the mornings because I've been lying down horizontal, which is not a great way to sleep if you're prone to heartburn/reflux. So the past couple nights I've slept sitting up, and my condition seemed to improve - also I've tried to eat less acidic food.
But I still kept the appointment, so I could get a flu shot, and I got a physical as well. But I got concerned after an e-mail from the doctor's office, which recommended that I postpone the appointment if I had any COVID-19 symptoms, and there are a lot of those, from fever, cough and loss of smell and taste to more basic ones like fatigue, nausea, sore throat and such. Nausea, check, fatigue, also check, and just the thought of a sore throat makes me feel like I have a sore throat - great, so now I think I've got COVID and I should cancel my exam, and go get tested instead. But I went anyway, they took my temperature at the doctor's office and I've got no fever, so probably not the virus - I'm just fatigued because I haven't been sleeping well, and it all goes back to being stressed out. Honestly, with the pandemic and election news I'd be a bit concerned about anyone who WASN'T stressed out at this point. So I'm just going to chew on some more Tums and try to think about better days ahead, maybe.
Nearly the whole damn cast of "Twilight" carries over, but I've still got to keep track of it all down below... As I figured, this makes parsing out my linking both easier and more difficult at the same time.
THE PLOT: Edward leaves Bella after an attack that nearly claimed her life and, in her depression, she falls into another difficult relationship - this time with her close friend, Jacob Black.
AFTER: I feel sorry for Charlie Swan, Bella's father, this was not the life he envisioned for her when she came to live with him, that she'd end up dating one monster after another. I assume in future installments he'll have to deal with her having a relationship with the Invisible Man (if she can find him) and maybe a roll in the hay with Frankenstein's Monster. And what does this say about Washington state, the new home of various monster clans? (Though this was filmed in Oregon, I believe, which has similar forests, the same always-cloudy weather plus the very photogenic Cannon Beach...)
Yep, as the title indicates, this film introduces the werewolves to the "Twilight" saga (and it's now "The Twilight Saga" in the title, I'm not sure why they changed the format in only the second film, instead of just adding a colon, like most franchises do. "Twilight: New Moon" would have made more sense, but the book this film is based on was just "New Moon", so there's zero consistency across the various mediums). Since I never read the books, I can sort of pretend to be surprised by this, but the fact is that these films were so pervasive about ten years ago that all of the major plot points were discussed in one review or another. It barely even seems worth issuing any kind of spoiler alert now, because either you're a fan of these stories and know them inside-out, or you avoided them like I did, you must have at least seen clips on TV of that cool CGI werewolf transformation.
So, this is how it's gonna be? Each episode starts with Bella feeling moody, then she seeks out some companionship and gets a renewed outlook, then finds out her new boyfriend is a monster? Only he's not really a monster, because he has a moral code - plus maybe that hits a little bit too close to home for the fans who find out that their boyfriends are symbolically monsters, and not actual ones. Isn't that always the way, ladies? Am I right or am I right? This is the pattern for the first two films, but I hope they came up with something different for the third installment, or Bella will be dating mummies and zombies before you know it.
This is supposed to be where I decide if I'm "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob", right? What about neither, can I be "Team Mike"? Mike's just been waiting in the wings, hoping to date Bella after each of her relationships goes south, and he seems like a decent enough fellow. Perhaps he's reaching too far out of his league, I mean, Jessica's RIGHT THERE and seems to have the hots for Mike, so what's the problem? Is Jessica no Bella? Really, come on, is Bella really that great compared to Jessica? At least Jessica has an upbeat outlook on life, while Bella just sits in her room for MONTHS (apparently) staring out the window. That's hardly constructive - come on, Bella, I know the first cut is the deepest (umm, literally in this case) but there are all sorts of monsters out there that you could pair up with. So you fell off the monster, you've got to get back up on top of it! Umm, so to speak.
Again, as with the first film, there's just not a lot happening in the first hour. Are the books the same way, nothing really happens for the first half of each book and then all the action is hurriedly loaded into the second half? More to the point, didn't I see this whole "vampires and werewolves are sworn enemies" rap in the "Underworld" films? (Man, I got suckered into those films good - the first was OK, but then the sequels totally sucked, I couldn't make bat-heads or werewolf-tails out of the later films...)
Things do happen, just not very exciting things - Bella learns the art of motorcycle maintenance, and then tries her hand at cliff-diving, and it does not go well. Actually, nothing really goes well because she sees the spectre of Edward everywhere, and it's super unclear whether she's imagining this, or he's found a way to speak to her remotely from far away, or he's dead and his ghost is haunting her. Choose your favorite, I suppose. But it turns out that Edward had to get away from Bella because he loved her TOO much, which I think is something that only happens in the movies. Obviously if he doesn't age and she does, then someday she's going to be old and gray and he'll still look 17, so everybody sort of racks their brains here and can't seem to come up with the very obvious solution to this problem. Oh, well, I guess it wasn't meant to be then, and they become the first couple in human/monster history to break up because their love was just too darn strong. (BARF!)
Finally, we get some werewolf action, as the gang of beasts has been secretly protecting Bella, and keeping that female vampire from the last film from reaching her to seek revenge for her mate, James. This is followed by a misinterpretation of a psychic vision, Edward's sister Alice saw Bella cliff-diving in her mind's eye and assumed she drowned, and after learning this Edward went to the Volturi (a bunch of Italian vampires, sort of a ruling council) and asked them to take his life, because some writer made it impossible for him to commit suicide by just stepping into a ray of sunlight. Those writers are always thinking about keeping their characters alive just to sell more books, right?
So it's off to Italy to save Edward (pretty convenient, does Bella even HAVE a passport?) - I just hope she can get there in time? And we meet a whole new group of vampires there, a group that isn't all hipster-vegetarian "I won't eat people because it's wrong". Plus they have some new powers, so I assume they'll be important later? Actually, you can infer a lot about how the plot might develop just by looking at the cast lists in advance, which is what I do. Of course, this is a double-edge sword, because I may discern things using this method that I'm not supposed to know just yet.
Back tomorrow with another installment of "Hipster Monsters and the Humans Who Love Them, for Some Reason..."
Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Ashley Greene, Rachelle Lefevre, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Nikki Reed, Kellan Lutz, Jackson Rathbone, Anna Kendrick, Elizabeth Reaser, Edi Gathegi, Michael Welch, Gil Birmingham, Christian Serratos, Justin Chon (all carrying over from "Twilight"), Michael Sheen (last seen in "Blood Diamond"), Dakota Fanning (last seen in "Please Stand By"), Noot Seear, Chaske Spencer, Tyson Houseman, Kiowa Gordon, Alex Meraz (last seen in "Bright"), Bronson Pelletier, Graham Greene (last seen in "Molly's Game"), Tinsel Korey (last seen in "The Lookout"), Jamie Campbell Bower (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"), Christopher Heyerdahl (last seen in "Stockholm"), Justine Wachsberger (last seen in "The Spy Who Dumped Me"), Cameron Bright, Charlie Bewley, Daniel Cudmore (last seen in "X-Men: Days of Future Past"), Christina Jastrzembska, Michael Adamthwaite,
RATING: 5 out of 10 clueless tourists
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