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Reviews
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)
A Review of New Moon by A Person Who Doesn't Hate Twilight and Is not a Teenager
(Coming from a place where I read all the books, saw the first movie, and I'm not a teenage girl.)
Light Romance and Light action mixed with Better than Narnia graphics,Teenage Romance, Angst, and Hunky actors make a decent movie experience, worth a matinée or student price.
I did not like the first Twilight. New Moon was better, a lot better. The effects are better, the dialogue is better, the romance is better, the action is better. I think there are a lot of people who will give this a bad review just thinking about it from the hype, but that's not really what you have to do with this movie. It's pretty much like a lot of movies made for teenagers--but you expect more out of it because it's supposed to be a serious vampire film, and it's not one of those. It's never going to be Interview with a Vampire or Underworld.
You go in expecting melodrama with a little action, cheesy teenage romance, and a lot of twitchy moves from Kristen Stewart--that's what this movie is. It's not worth 9.75 to me, so that's why I saw the matinée. I think it is worth it for the graphics and effects to see it on the big screen.
My wish for Eclipse is that they use less camera movement between characters in really long dialogue scenes and tone down the symphony. I really didn't like that part and it gave me a headache to be constantly going back and forth--the scenes are already dramatic, let's not make it worse with wooshy camera moves and q.q violins.
Taylor was easily the best character. Peter is as good as people are saying he is. Kristen did better this time, and Robert is Robert, I didn't really think the makeup team did him justice or Mike either for some reason--they all looked really bad compared to Taylor.
Shutter (2008)
Why was this movie even made?
Shutter seemed like a promising horror flick. I saw The Grudge (American) when it came out and thought it had something to offer my kind of crowd, the college moviegoer. I was expecting for this film to have the same effect. Unfortunately, I think that the best thing about this movie was the trailer, and after finding out that this was a remake, I have to ask why was this movie even made? Was it only made because we can't read (subtitles) and watch at the same time?
Without seeing the original, I can only guess that it is better. The Shutter remake had all the potential to be a great scary movie. It had the creepy music, lighting, and ghosts. It also had a very interesting theme of incorporating a vengeful spirit into photographs that definitely worked better than the whole "noise" concept of the movie White Noise. (Shutter remake is definitely better than White Noise.) However, the concept was not original to this film, and therefore, they really didn't need to remake a movie so soon after the original (if at all). The effects in this movie were probably a little bit more enhanced, but it's nothing I haven't seen before. They definitely weren't on the level of The Grudge (maybe budget constraints?)
I don't think the actors and actresses stood out at all in this movie. You'll think Rachel Taylor is beautiful and Joshua Jackson plays his part well, but they're just blah. Their chemistry is blah. Their performances are blah. You could replace them with another actor and actress, and it wouldn't make a difference.
I just felt like they could have done a lot more. It didn't scare me nearly as much as I would have liked it too. It was enjoyable to a point, but my friend and I both had to ask, was that it? I thought the ending was a bit contrived, maybe because I already gathered everything I needed to know from the trailer so the "twist" was just as predictable as everything else. They needed to do a lot more with Joshua Jackson's character in my opinion to put this movie over the edge, and they failed to do that.
So basically, this film will scare the younger crowd. In fact I think that's why it's PG-13 rated to get kids in the theater and make a buck. It's not going to do anything for anyone who is wanting something more than The Grudge. It'll creep you out a little but its style and concept is predictable and nothing new.
Overall, 6/10 for me for its average horror movie appeal.