Despite the ubiquity of technology and the rate at which its progressing books are still an incredibly powerful force in our culture; which is a good thing. That is, except when it comes to the creation of the fan frenzy over a certain pre-teen girl fantasy tale called Twilight.

Without the enormous following that the Stephanie Myer penned series accumulated this second film in the series would never have been made. The first movie was so incredibly bad that even the fans of the book found it lacking. Although I’ve only seen the movie the one time in the theaters to do the review I can still remember how laughably horrific it was. The only scene that stood out was the Vampire baseball scene which was perhaps the only original thing about the film that worked.

In any event thanks to soccer moms and teenage daughters everywhere we were given the gift of The Twilight Saga: New Moon. The word cheesy doesn’t do this disaster justice. They go so far over the cheesy line that a new term needs to be created for it… how about Twi-Cheese? From the slow motion shots of Edward (Robert Pattinson) walking from his car to generic rock ‘n roll music to the ridiculous meadow of flowers that Bella (Kristen Stewart) imagines herself in, it’s all such over the top Twi-Cheese that I just couldn’t stand it. They all scream desperately lonely girls hoping for a ‘rescue me fantasy tale from a dreamy mysterious boy who may or may not actually be alive.’

My main complaint with these movies and this one in particular, is that it provides the worst role model for young girls that I have ever seen. In this installment of the ‘Dead Guys are the Only Sexy Guys Left on the Planet’ tale Edward decides to leave Bella forever and she is literally suicidal at the thought of losing this boy. Her life stops and she becomes wild and reckless taking any chance necessary to see him again regardless of the physical danger. It’s as though they created a “how-NOT-to-fall-in-love guide’ for teenage girls. She says at one point that the only time when the hole in her heart seems filled is when she spends time with Jacob (Taylor Lautner), the third side to this pathetic love triangle. So basically if you’re a girl you will never be complete without the love of a boy; Preferably a supernatural one in some way shape or form.

This brings us to the only good thing about this movie, Taylor Lautner as Bella’s best friend Jacob Black. His ridiculous, often shown, man body that seemed to spring up over night is without a doubt the highlight of the entire film. His shirtless-ness absolutely saved this movie from being the biggest waste of time ever put on film. Aside from the

obvious aesthetic appeal of Lautner he’s also the only actor that brings any kind of charisma or chemistry to the screen. Pattinson and Stewart are so one-note sour that they both seem dead… and remember only one of them is actually supposed to be! When Stewart has her scenes with Lautner there’s at least one person giving something to the moment. (and trust me, it’s not Stewart)

Watching this on Bluray as opposed to regular DVD didn’t really add much to the experience, though I will say when Taylor rips his shirt off time after time you’re going to want to see that in as Hi-Def as possible! That boy is beautiful.

Special features on the disc include filmmaker commentary (which is worthless) some music videos (which are pointless) and a 6 part documentary on the making of The Twilight Saga: New Moon which taught me more about these films than I ever thought I’d know. That being said the featurettes are well put together with some good editing, nice interviews with the cast and some cool behind-the-scenes stuff. Also it shows some clips from their appearance at Comic Con, which for those of us here at TheCinemaSource was cool to see because we were there for that.

The bottom line is this movie tries so hard for the modern day Romeo and Juliet angle and it never comes together for several reasons. First, in modern times the story of tragic star crossed lovers just seems weak and co-dependant and there’s no way around that. Second, the thing that was keeping Romeo and Juliet from being together was an irrational hatred between their families that was trying to encompass them. So it became the tragedy of what happens when love can’t conquer hate… in Twilight it’s the story of whiny weak-willed girl who can’t have what she wants and that is far less interesting.

So unless you’re a Twi-hard dying for your next helping of Twi-Cheese skip this and move on to a real Vampire movie or dare I say it… Eclipse?