The Twilight Saga: New Moon

I wanted to like Twilight. While I had never read the books, anything with vampires has promise, right? But the movie didn't quite work for me. Still, I had hope that with the first movie's crazy success, we'd see a stronger story and more lavish production values in the sequel. Granted, New Moon looks a little better, but the story is almost non-existent. Really, this is a film where nothing happens. It feels like a filler episode of a long-running TV show, as we watch Bella mope around from one low-intensity scene to the next. Let's face it. Bella isn't exactly Helen of Troy material, so it's hard to believe she's caught in this vampire versus werewolf tug-of-war. What's so special about her? She's an increasingly unsympathetic character with a somewhat lame super power: vampire's can't read her thoughts. But if you can believe it, there's actually a more moody character than Bella. Edward is ready to kill himself over his self-imposed isolation from Bella. His plan is to expose his sparkly skin to the muggles, thus marking him for death by the creepy Volturi-essentially the cops in the vampire world. But who associates sparkly skin with vampirism? I'm sure anyone who saw Edward sparkling in the sunlight wouldn't give him a second glance. He just looks like some pale dude looking for his way home after a wild glam-rock concert. Anyway, not a fan of this movie. Still, it may have just enough unintentionally funny moments, making it worth checking out when it's on cable. Too bad MST3K isn't on anymore...they'd have a field day with this one.