I’ve experienced audible collective gasps twice in my twenty-two year cinema-going lifetime. The first was during the walk in wardrobe scene toward the end of Sex And The City: The Movie and the second was last night at the Twilight: New Moon pre-screening when Jacob the werewolf took off his shirt. In fact, Jacob’s rippling torso is so integral to the New Moon film-going experience it should be credited in the poster and trailer. *And Introducing Taylor Lautner’s Jacked Guns* or something like that. By the movie’s predictable conclusion you kind of feel sorry for Jacob’s shirt, which suffers the same fate as the ethnic minority co-worker in a slasher flick, it dies early and is never seen again.
Which is part of the reason I like Twilight. Sure Kristen Stewart is attractive in a scruffy, tainted way. But she’s not classically beautiful by any means, her wardrobe is purposely dowdy and her expression fluctuates between stoned and really stoned which means there’s nothing tangibly sexy about her portrayal of Bella Swan. Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen on the other hand is this glimmering other worldly protector whose main conflict is the temptation to suck Bella’s blood. It’s one of the most overt metaphors for abstinence in recent cinema memory but what the filmmakers neglect to tell you is the act of watching this film WILL GET YOU PREGNANT.
Then there’s Taylor Lautner’s werewolf love interest Jacob Black or as I like to call him Pecs McGee. A childhood friend turned confidant who is either running, fighting or flexing – with the only common thread being his lack of shirt. If Matthew McConaguah impregnated a wolf not only would the resulting offspring be an excellent triathlete – it would be Jacob Black. It’s a refreshing gender role reversal, for in the world of Twilight it’s the men who are unashamed pieces of meat with their levels of objectification lying somewhere between the cast of Coyote Ugly and softcore porn. I’m no Scientist but I’d say the tension between the jostling male leads accounts for 50% of the film’s tween appeal – which is to say whether you’re Team Edward or Team Jacob, the real winner here is Stephanie Meyers’ bank account. Shit, if you could somehow transplant Pattison’s head onto Lautner’s body I’m sure the world would spontaneously explode.
Other than that the movie is standard, mindlessly enjoyable, overly earnest teen drama fare. It’s pretty easy to lose yourself in the plot despite the funky CGI and admittedly terrible acting. Which boils down to a race for last between Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson (Stewart loses because she has more screen time). Don’t get me a wrong, I’m not a hater. I just don’t share the global pant wetting hysteria this film incites in some people – but I can certainly understand it. It’s raw escapism at it’s most manipulative, the type of media hoopla that inspires the same fanatic devotion as Star Wars before it but instead of light-sabers and Darth Vader it’s repressed boners and being alone. So in the end the people who’ll really want to see this film are either A) Crazy fans who’ve already read the books or B) Dudes who want to bone crazy Twilight fans who’ve already read the books appease their girlfriends. And the rest will be people like me, rubbernecking to see what all the commotion’s about – and to tell you the truth it’s really not that bad.
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