Team Edward!

Sorry I have not gotten around to writing my review of The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Weitz, 2009).  I saw the movie Friday night at 11:30 pm (after not being able to get tickets to the midnight showing) and I absolutely LOVED it.  Now I know not all of you are Twilight fans, but those of you that are, I'm sure you will enjoy this film.  Non-fans may want to skip this one... but that's your loss.  In the film, based on the second novel in the Twilight series, Edward Cullen (aka the most beautiful, perfect, amazing vampire ever!) leaves his girlfriend/soul-mate, Bella Swan, after a slight mishap at her 18th birthday party.  With Edward gone, Bella is absolutely heartbroken and falls into a deep depression.  In order to assure herself that Edward did in fact exist, she becomes a sort of adrenaline-junkie, desperately seeking danger that will provide her with apparitions of Edward.  She also finds her friendship with Jacob Black growing and becoming more complex... especially once he realizes he is a werewolf.

The main cast, including Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Robert Pattinson, return and are joined by new faces of the wolf gang and Volturi who make their debut.  I personally thought everyone was well-cast and great.  Robert is the perfect Edward and although his part was much smaller than in the first film, I found myself looking forward to his screen presence.  Taylor's shorter hair cut and ripped physique was pleasant to look at.  All I can say is thank gGod the long locks are gone... those were not working for him.  It is pretty crazy to believe he is only 17 and has the body of a tiny body-builder (steroids, anyone?)  The new wolf members were also good although I was surprised they weren't in the film much.

Saying I loved this film may be a slight understatement.  I literally was smiling the entire time and probably gasped when Edward showed up (I can't help it... Robert is gorgeous!)  It may have a mere 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, but this is the kind of film that fans enjoy and not movie critics per se.  And I think the fact that it debuted at #1 and made over $142 million says a lot about how dedicated Twilight fans are!  It already broke the record for the biggest one-day gross (beating out The Dark Knight, which previously held the record) and it more than doubled the debut of the first film, Twilight.  Way to go New Moon!

Anyone see it yet?