Twilight: New Moon Is Better Than The Obama Administration!

After all the hype: the tantalizing trailers, the Facebook groups, the endless red carpets, the debates between Team Edward and Team Jacob, the debates over the stupidity of choosing between Team Edwin and Team Jacob, the magazine covers, the Mormon-Christian-Puritanical overtones; I have just one question: why does it have to be so good?

After Transformers 2, The Lost Symbol, the Obama Administration and 2009′s other great letdowns, I was sincerely unprepared for the legitimately fulfilling piece of entertainment that was Twilight: New Moon.

This is a good movie…for what it is. It is not To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Outsiders, or even Cruel Intentions. And the notion that it could be nominated for Best Picture is laughable (though no more so than Little Miss Sunshine, Gangs of New York or Gladiator – you will laugh at the cheesy dialogue and ridiculous narrative, but by the end, I ask, were you not entertained?). But it’s not that kind of movie – it is instead a very expensive teen flick, and should be evaluated by no other standard.

As the film opens, we rejoin Bella – still alt, still virginal, still madly in love with her 108 year-old (though 17 again, and again) vampire Edward Cullen – living with her father in the spooky, woodsy town of Forks, Washington. On her 18^th birthday, an accident forces Edward to decide to abandon his love – for her own safety – leaving Bella in a depression barely relieved by her friend Jacob, an admirer, American Indian, and, — when not gaying it up bare-chested in Bruce Weber photo-ops with his shirtless pals — a werewolf.

The scene is now set for battles between our favorite occult figures and adolescent emotions as the characters stare wistfully into the wilderness and a little lustfully at each other’s perfect faces. What’s impressive about New Moon is that we never really tire of these long looks and the predictable emotional adventures they inspire. Instead, we get two hours of fairly unadulterated fun.

The story never plods, the dialogue is only so terrible, and even at its weakest moments, the actors keep us steadily engaged (Pattison has managed to curb the awkward accent without provenance that dominated his speech in Twilight).

What more do you really want? It doesn’t have Dazed and Confused chummy humor, or Bring It On’s snappy dialogue, but it doesn’t need to. It is a clever and terribly entertaining fantasy that, far more successfully than the recent Harry Potter films, negotiates the genre of Teen Epic. What it lacks in nuance, it makes up for in fast-paced action, some stunning art direction, and characters that, if they are not quite believable, are at least relatable.

The hype, as always, should not be believed, but neither should the backlash. Team Jacob, Team Edward, Team Who Gives a Shit? Relax. New Moon delivers.

BONUS: Check out TFT Film Critic Jonathan Kiefer’s short film about Robert Pattinson

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZuEBF9GH6k