When writing this review I came to the conclusion that only THE DARK KNIGHT and perhaps SPIDER-MAN were proper superhero sequels. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me, but not many great superheroes flicks out there right? Sure I enjoyed other movies like the FANTASTIC FOUR, but this was mainly due to Jessica Alba being almost naked and who does not want to see that!

With IRON MAN 2 we continue where we left off in part one. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) proclaimed he in fact is Iron Man and this has made his company, Stark Industries, flourish quite well after it almost went bankrupt. However being a superhero comes with a price. They either want to use you or want the powers you use, with Iron Man it is the latter. The government is trying their best to get its hands on the technology and with this a new enemy arises in the form of Ivan Vanko, played by none other then Mickey Rourke. He is the son of a scientist, who worked at Stark Industries; more specifically on the Arc Reactor.

Now we got ourselves a new villain to battle! This is the core of every superhero movie: Superhero faces (new) Supervillain. But this is where the movie actually goes wrong. Instead of focusing on just this main plot, with a few extra side plots like a love relationship or perhaps the interference of the government, we get thrown into an array of other story arcs which make it either too confusing, too complex or simply just too much.

To explain what I mean, here are some of the story arcs present in IRON MAN 2:
- New Supervillain rises, which has to be defeated by the Superhero
- New Supervillain has connections with Stark Industries somehow
- Government wants to have the Iron Man technology
- Government hires the wrong guy (aka evildoer)
- Evildoer collaborates with new Supervillain
- Tony Stark’s health is going downhill (as is his social life)
- Love Relationship is put to the test
- War Machine enters the fray
- Best friend relationship is put to the test
- SHIELD enters the fray
- Flickers of SHIELD become more apparent for future movies

Now the movie itself only is 124 minutes, so if you just divide these (at least) 11 story arcs by 124 minutes you get a little over 11 minutes for each plot. That is not enough time to explain certain details or even have proper action sequences.

Which brings us to the second point, the action sequences. There are only a two proper action sequences in the entire movie; the first battle with Ivan and the final battle. All others are just for the show or to add some more fluff to the story. This actually is not a bad thing if the action sequences are properly done, but when it comes to the final big fighting scene, the ending of the fight is short, has no flair and feels like an abrupt end.

So lets talk acting then. A new big role in this movie is that of War Machine, which was supposed to be played by Terrence Howard, he apparently wanted too much money so Don Cheadle gladly stepped in to play Lt. Col. James Rhodes. This actually does not upset me as much, since I prefer him as an actor. But due to the many story lines, the actors and actresses have to outperform themselves to present a believable character in the time frame each of them have. This of course is no problem with characters we already know from the previous part, but with all the new characters and the growth of certain existing characters, this can become a problem.

All these slight “problems” could have been overcome if they scrapped a few plots and extended the length of the movie a little bit. Now the movie feels a bit sloppy and unfinished. I however enjoyed the movie, but as stated in other reviews, I’m a biased Downey fan. IRON MAN 2 is certainly worth the watch, but it is not as good as the previous part. The complete series (THE INCREDIBLE HULK, IRON MAN and IRON MAN 2) have set a nice solid foundation for the upcoming AVENGERS movie, but without Edward Norton playing the Hulk I can only guess on how this will turn out. First however we can get ready for THOR, which was teased after the credits.

ANTICHRIST starts well enough with a breathtaking prologue in which two oblivious parents have sex while their young son gets out of his bed, climbs on the window and falls to his death on the white snowy streets below. Surprisingly, unlike all other movies concerning hapless children falling out of windows, this sequence is in fact NOT accompanied by Eric Clapton strumming a guitar. Instead we get a gorgeous Handel vocal piece accompanying the slow-motion black-and-white wide screen images. I most say I was quite pleased with his divergence from the child-falling-genre.

After this tragic event the first chapter (yes, there are chapters, this is Von Trier after all), entitled “Grief”, sees the film switch to color as the mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) leaves the hospital after collapsing at her son’s funeral. She enters into the care of her husband (Willem Dafoe), who conveniently is a professional therapist, making the whole arrangement a lot more logical than if he would have been – say – a pop-up book illustrator or a cucumber farmer. Dafoe’s character, credited as “He”, is distrustful of the psychological care “She” was receiving in the hospital and takes it upon himself to help his wife work through the grief process. Eventually He comes to the conclusion that her greatest fears center on a cabin in a forest called “Eden”, where She spent some time alone with the toddler, while writing a thesis on gynocide (of all things). The mentioning of “He”, “She” and “Eden” should give you a pretty good idea of how in-your-face most the metaphors are that Von Trier will be relaying upon in this film, although it also made me interested in who the “Snake” and the “Apple” would be.

Anyway, as to be expected, the couple travel to this “heavenly place” to address and hopefully cure her fears and at the same time ease her mourning. During this journey, while She sleeps, He encounters a deer in the woods. As the beautiful animal turns to leave, He sees it is mid-stillbirth, with the dead calf hanging limply from its rear. After seeing this film all my future viewings of BAMBI will never be the same. More references to the brutality of nature (not to mention the death of the young) occur in the next chapter on “Pain”, which charts the woman’s self-proclaimed recovery at the cabin.  The tension is slowly mounting as the couple pretend that everything is alright while the cabin, which is located under a gigantic tree, endures a never ending assault by what must be the world’s scariest acorns. The chapter ends with a – presumably – unintended hilarious scene, when He comes across his second animal messenger, a self-disembowelling fox uttering the iconic words: “Chaos Reigns.”

In the following chapter “Despair: Gynocide”, Von Trier brings the previous mentioned concepts of Adam/Eve and forbidden nature together in a for him typical presentation of womanhood. While searching through the cabin He finds materials his wife studied for her thesis: pictures of witch-hunts and a scrapbook filled with articles and notes on misogynist topics, in which her handwriting becomes more frantic and illegible as the pages go on. It seems that due to intense self-blame over Nic (which is the kid’s name by the way, my money was Cain, Abel or Seth), she has come to embrace the belief that women are inherently evil. He confronts her with Nic’s autopsy report, which states that the bones in both of his feet were deformed, making us suspect some form of Münchhausen by proxy complex. This appears to be proven to be true, when He finds photographs of Nic, in which She has always put his boots on the wrong feet.

Shortly after this discovery the movie goes completely off the tracks, with Von Trier presenting the viewer some vicious acts of violence, that are fairly unintelligible and almost undeniably misogynistic. She suddenly attacks him in the shed, stabbing him and then violently disrobing and mounting him while accusing him of planning to leave her. She then crushes his genitals with a block of wood, the pain understandably driving him unconscious. While he is still out, She masturbates him until he orgasms, ejaculating blood onto her shirt and face. She then drills a hole through his calf, and bolts a heavy grindstone to his leg. Fleeing outside, she leaves him unconscious in the shed, throwing the wrench she used to tighten the millstone underneath the cabin. Yes, while this may seem like a typical Saturday night to you and me, but some people apparently find this shocking and offensive, the pussies.

After waking up and He drags himself to a foxhole to hide. While She frantically searches for him, He encounters a crow buried alive – his third animal messenger – which makes noise upon waking, giving away his hiding place. He beats it repeatedly, but it-just-doesn’t-want-to-fucking-die. She finally locates him and digs him out of the foxhole, hitting the poor man on his head with the shovel along the way. Several hours pass, night falls, and while crying She apologizes (which of course changes everything and they live happily ever after) and drags him back to the cabin. In a flash-back to the prologue, it is implied that She saw what was about to happen to Nic and did not act. She then takes a pair of scissors and severs her clitoris. All my future viewings of pornography will never be the same after seeing this film.

During the night the couple are again visited by the crow, deer and fox (if this was a Disney film the animals would probably start singing. What rimes with clitoris?), while hail beats constantly against the roof of the cabin. Breaking through the floor, He discovers the wrench. Although She stabs him in the back, He nevertheless succeeds in removing the grind-stone and He proceeds to strangle her to death. After burning her body on a  pyre, He makes his way from the cabin. Upon reaching the top of a hill, he looks down to see hundreds of women ascending towards him, their faces blurred.

While ANTICHRIST is a beautifully shot and well-acted film, the press-outrage described at the beginning  is definitely not entirely unwarranted. It’s indeed quite hard to argue for the necessity of the described shock effects, let alone to clarify the meaning of the many eyebrow-raising symbolic references. Overall,  Von Trier wasted much talent (including his own) to make this film and maintains his status as cinema’s most notorious and interesting enfant terrible along the way. That said, ANITCHRIST is still a pretty good date movie, especially if your special lady has a history of mental illness. A recent loss of a loved one might also get you in the mood to pick this from the dvd-rack. I would suggest removing all knives and heavy equipment from the house before screening though.

Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) suffers a similar fate in THE LOVELY BONES. She is your average kid, who likes to takes photographs and watch movies and plays. Susie is the oldest of the 3 kids Jack (Mark Wahlberg) and Abigail Salmon (Rachel Weisz) have. Their family can be described as your average happy American family. However even they could not see the tragedy about to come…

George Harvey, a neighbor who lives a couple of blocks further down the street, notices dear Susie Salmon one summer day. He feels compelled to get her near him, so he comes with a cleverly devised plan. Within this plan he describes a contraption underneath a grain field, which is basically a shed, but then hidden out of sight.

One random school night Susie has a movie class and talks a bit with Ray Sing (Reece Ritchie), a guy she has a crush on. They plan to meet each other the next day at the mall. It is late and she walks home through the grain field to get home a bit faster. She stumbles upon Mr. Harvey, who finally sees his chance. He lures Susie to take a look at his secret club house he made for the kids in the neighborhood. She hesitates but gives in after much persuasion from Mr. Harvey. When they both are inside the shed, he has his way with her.

Next scene we see Susie escaping from the contraption, only to find out that it is her spirit who escaped and she is no longer among the living. Her body was left behind and she never made it. Her spirit however transits to a place between Heaven and Earth. In this weird place she is been given a choice:
Find out who her murderer is and make sure he gets what he deserves? Or let everything be and let her family heal from the loss they have suffered.
While she is watching everything from this magical place she is in, her family is attempting to find her lost body. The decisions Susie has to make and the search of the family is tense. At moments you are on the edge of your seat almost screaming at the screen: “Watch out! Do not go into this room!”, “Get that damn bastard, cut off his …” Alright, alright I am getting a bit carried away now, but this is an indication on how much emotional load this movie has. I must say that director Peter Jackson did a terrific job on translating these feelings, a bit similar as how he did DISTRICT 9. With THE LOVELY BONES however these emotions are more recognizable for the audience.

In the end Susie makes some though decisions, like confronting the history of her killer, grasping that last chance to share some tender moments with her crush Ray Sing and letting her family be so they can heal their pain. Even though she was advised to do things differently, it shows that some decisions are worth taking.

The movie, which is based on the book with the same title, is full of things one should do or should not do. You know, those lines you hear from your parents each day: “Do not talk with strangers, not even those from the neighborhood”, “Do not wander late at night, do not go through places without streetlights” and so on. But besides that, this movie gives you a real good indication how people cope with the loss of someone close. As you might have mentioned throughout your read, I am very positive about this movie. For me THE LOVELY BONES is definitely one of the better movies I have seen lately and I would recommend it to everyone. Most critics will probably not agree with me, but I think they were expecting more of a murder / detective mystery, instead of a fantasy thriller.

Now I started this review concerning Milly. She eventually was found when her neighbor went to the local police station to confess his crimes, similar to that what happened with Susie. Her body however was found in his backyard, buried underneath the earth. My condolences go to her family and I can only hope that her neighbor will eventually be punished for his crimes, one way or the other. No sane human being should ever do something this horrifying, nor should someone ever have to endure such pain.

The movie gives you several stories, which in the end combine nicely. This has been done before with similar romantic movies like LOVE ACTUALLY or proper films like CRASH. Now I am not going to compare VALENTINE’S DAY with CRASH, but it does come close to the British LOVE ACTUALLY.

With VALENTINE’S DAY we get a star cast thrown at us. People playing in this movie are: Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Carter Jenkins, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Shirley MacLaine, Emma Roberts, Julia Roberts, Bryce Robinson and Taylor Swift.
Now each of them has some kind of relationship with one another, so when you look at above mentioned list, ask yourself: Who is the hottest female and who is the hottest male?

Well the younger generation will probably pick Talyer Lautner with all the TWILIGHT hype which is going on, but I am guessing that most of you will say:
- Hottest female is Jessica Alba
- Hottest male is Patrick Dempsey

In my honest opinion, the best part of this movie is the role these two have. They are the so called “bad people” and their role is insignificant compared to the other ones. To see this was actually quite surprising and in the end it felt as a good choice for the director / writer. The less known actors actually shine in this movie, which makes the entire movie stand out more as a whole.

The story has several plots, with a focus on that of Ashton Kutcher who owns a flower store. All other people are either customer, friend, family or related to their pet dog. In the end this gives a big “feel good” to this movie. But this is the reason why you went to see it right?

As a classic romantic I really enjoy these type of movies. Though there are some small clichés in VALENTINE’S DAY, most of the things came as a surprise to me. Sure as the story progresses you can guess who will end up with whom and who will not have an happy end. But if your only reference is the trailer, things are not as it may seem.

The whole star cast have quite an evenly divided role and no role actually overshadows the other. So overall I must say that this movie is done quite nicely. I am quite sure, in the end, you will have a big smile on your face. Partly because of how it ends and the bloopers during the credits.

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS is a movie, which can be enjoyed more thoroughly if you have watched the documentary CRAZY LEADERS OF THE WORLD, PART ONE. At least that is what I read after seeing the movie. So I am not sure whether or not I enjoyed the movie as it was meant to be.

Anyway the movie tells the story of Ann Arbor Daily Telegram reporter Bob Wilton, played by Ewan McGregor. One day he interviews Gus Lacy, a guy who claims to have psychic abilities. Bob is quite sure he is plain nuts and does not pay attention to it. When his wife leaves him for his editor, he gets new energy through his anger. He flies over to Kuwait to do some soul searching or some proper journalism by investigating the Iraq War.

He finally meets Lyn Cassady, a (ex-) Special Forces guy. Who reveals he was part of an American army unit specialized in training psychic soldiers or “Jedi Warriors” as he calls them. This role is being portrayed by George Clooney and he does this quite good if you ask me. Some of the dialogue cannot be taken seriously, but he pulls it off without showing even the slightest of a grin.

Lyn and Bob go through some incidents and as the story progresses Bob learns more about Lyn his past and what these so called Jedi Warriors could do. Some examples Lyn gives are: invisibility, remote viewing, cloud bursting, walking through walls and intuition.

They eventually meet up with the founder of the original unit, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) who now is employed by PSIC, depressed and a bit of an alcoholic. PSIC is a private research firm with a focus on psychological and psychic experiments. This firm is being run by another former student of Bill, Larry Hooper. Larry was a student who has a focus on the “Dark Side” of the psychic powers (aka Darth Vader right?). So Lyn does not like the methods Larry is now employing with PSIC.

In the meanwhile Bob learns even more of the ways the New Earth Army were suppose to operate and he and Django eventually spike the water and food of the military base. With the entire base being “a bit high”, they free the goats and some captured locals who where being used for psychic experiments.

Lyn and Django fly off in a helicopter and Bob is left behind, entrusted with all the knowledge he has gained to write an article about everything. However when the story gets aired on the news, only the portion of how the captives were forced to repeatedly listen to Barney & Friends was shown. And even this portion was not taken seriously by the news network.

In the final scene we see how Bob finally “ascends” to the realms of “Jedi Warriors” when he storms out of his office running through a solid wall vowing the true story will be heard by the public. Just like a true Jedi of the Light Side.

Now this movie is really something you honestly cannot take seriously without knowing what it actually all about. Of course there is some humour in it, but with some Googling I found out that the movie is based on above-mentioned documentary, which is based on a book (similar title) tracing back to 2004. This book, written by Jon Ronson with research from John Sergeant, examines several different connections with paranormal military programs and psychological techniques being used for interrogation in the War on Terror.
The book goes back three decades only to reveal that these techniques are being used by the U.S. in Iraq. Besides the whole Barney & Friends on Iraqi prisoners-of-war, the smuggling of hundred goats into the command centre at Fort Bragg (North Carolina) and the mass-suicide of the members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in San Diego is also being discussed.

Well this all just sounds dandy to me, but I have not seen any documentary nor have I read the book. So how does one enjoy a movie as odd as this? Well to be honest, you hardly do enjoy it. Sure some scenes were funny, especially the ones with goats suddenly dropping or references being made with STAR WARS. But after the movie was over, you could really notice that the audience did not like this movie.

But here at criticism.com we are giving you an honest and unbiased view on movies and with this in mind I can say that the movie was indeed weird and something I did not see coming. But in the end I did enjoy the watch and I could see what the director was trying to do. I however have mixed feelings whether or not he did a thorough job with this movie. The acting itself is decent, though nothing special. I really enjoyed the role of George and I will definitely watch the movie again after viewing the documentary. But I think with a few extra frames in the beginning or at the end of the movie, would have helped out a lot of people.

Boris Yellnikoff, played by Larry David, can be described as one of those old people who like to complain about everything. His ideologies often do not match when it comes to religion, relationships or other random things. Boris likes to impress others or convince them his point of view is in fact the only correct one.
He lived his entire life in New York and will complain about almost every aspects of life towards every other character in the movie. At times he even complains at the audience! The latter being a nice touch I have to admit.

It is when Melodie St. Ann Celestine – the lovely Even Rachel Wood – enters his life and he eventually allows her to stay at his apartment. His odd view on life and reasoning sparks the love of Melodie and they fall in love. Things go really awkward when both the father and the mother of Melodie show up, trying to take her back home. They however continue their own lives, which result in nice twists and turns in the story. Some keywords are gay, orgies and adultery. Sounds nice huh? But the movie is not about previous mentioned things. It is how people should actually try to make the best out of everything and out of every situation.

So when you are in for a different view on life, have the need to take a step back from things, then this movie will be your cup of tea. Because when it comes to life, Boris motto “whatever works” is indeed a perspective I can support.

SHERLOCK HOLMES is based on the original stories of our famous detective – No shit Sherlock… – only this time Guy Ritchie thought he would give a spin to it. Originally he was planning to shoot this movie from a BATMAN BEGINS point of view, showing the early years of Sherlock. Though at first he thought Downey would be too old, casting him convinced him otherwise. They changed a few things and SHERLOCK HOLMES tells the story from an older point of view.

But the movie starts with a nice action scene where Sherlock puts down a couple of guys with careful planning. A nice touch, which will be used so now and then throughout the movie. With help from Watson they stop Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) performing a sacrificial ritual. Blackwood gets arrested and is sentenced for the gallows.

After the arrest of Lord Blackwood, Sherlock has no more cases to work on and Watson is preparing for his new life with his fiancée Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly). It is when things get shuck up when the hot Rachel McAdams enters the scene. Miss McAdems plays the role of the one love of Sherlock, Irene Adler. She eventually “convinces” him to investigate the death of someone called Reordan.
In the meanwhile Lord Blackwood seems to have returned from the dead after his hanging. And as Sneaky would say at this point: “The plot thickens!”. The audience now has to keep track of Lord Blackwood and his evil doings and the hot Irene. We all know which gets our attention right?

The storylines eventually meet and Lord Blackwood reveals to be not as mysterious as he tries to appear. He is just an average evil bloke trying to seize control over Britain. Irene is just another hag with a hidden agenda. So in the end the movie is just a Scooby Dooby Doo flick with a couple of loose ends. The various mysteries get solved and everything is well.

So what does this movie bring us comparing it to other crime solving mysteries? Well you have a nice presentation of an old Sherlock Holmes portrayed by Robert Downey. I must say that Guy Ritchie did cast the others quite well and their acting was not that bad. Though Jude Law made my butt cheeks clench at times. At least he is better than Russell Crowe, who originally was thought to play this role.
Mark Strong however did an excellent job as playing the bad guy. The scenes with Downey especially are done very well, for example the prison scene where they talk with each other right before Blackwood gets hanged.

I have to be honest here – even though I am a big Robert Downey Jr. fan – the movie itself is not really something special. There are some great scenes, especially the ones with the “careful planned out ass kickin’” and the dialogue is not that bad either. But some things really should have been done differently, for example the climax scene on top of an unfinished Tower Bridge. It looks nice, but it really felt out of place, comparing it with the rest of the movie. Or perhaps it is just because the special effects in this scene are subpar.

However the movie as a total is quite decent, especially when you are looking at the other recent releases which are currently showing, like AVATAR and UP IN THE AIR. With SHERLOCK HOLMES you are watching something quite entertaining and do I dare to say, refreshing?

AVATAR (in 3D!) James Cameron latest work is currently being praised into the Heavens and I could not understand that. Yes he brought us some great movies like TITANIC and TERMINATOR. But when the name Avatar comes to my mind, I always think of the bloke below.

The movie has generated a lot of buzz and the hype is immense. I however only saw 1 or 2 trailers and wasn’t impressed. When I finally went to see it, only 10% of the theater was filled with people. “How could this movie be so hyped?”, well all I could do was to put on those ugly 3D Glasses, sit back and enjoy the ride.

After almost 3 hours – yes this movie is very, very long – I got out with more headache than when I went in. The ride you get when watching AVATAR in 3D is detailed, fast and really intense. But let us talk story first.

AVATAR tells the story of Jake Sully, played by the rather unknown actor – for me at least – Sam Worthington. Jake is a marine who got injured in combat and now cannot walk. His twin brother however died doing research on Pandora. So Jake gets an offer to fill the void his brother left.
The research focuses on the various life forms on Pandora and on making contact with the locals called the Na`Vi. This research is being led by none other than Sigourney Weaver, playing Dr. Grace Augustine.
The underlying reason behind the research however, is to gather a very rare and expensive mineral. Jake Sully gets in contact with the Na`Vi and one of them, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) gets the assignment to train him. Of course they fall in love and when push comes to shove, Jake has to decide to either fight for the greedy military corporation or for the Na`Vi. I do not have to tell you how things will end, because every sane human being will know how it ends.

Somehow I cannot understand why this specific story took so long for James Cameron to realize. Sure the effects are very nice, but the story itself is really thin and unoriginal. Heck I think any 6 year old could have come up with it. But the story should not be the reason to go and watch this at your local cinema. What makes this $500 million dollar movie “worthwhile” are the effects in 3D. Imagine being a bird or some other small creature, constantly following the various characters in the movie, seeing rain fall or bushes passing you by. The vast amount of details being put into the animated parts is what sets this movie apart from others. You sometimes have to realize that everything you see is computer generated. None of it is real, but it is presented to you as if it is. Of course the great music in the background helps as well, but in my honest opinion this is the only true reason to go watch it on the big screen.

The acting of the “real” characters is average, the story is cliché as hell, but when you are watching the movie you tend to forget all these flaws. I got to hand that to James, he did a great job keeping the audience focused, due to its sheer beauty.

When finally the ending credits appeared I realized why the movie cost this much. They actually showed the credits both horizontally and vertically, else you would be sitting another hour just watching all the names of the people, who worked on it. But where all these people required for this movie? Was the entire $500 million well spent? Or was this movie created just to break records? These last questions I cannot answer. Costs aside though, James Cameron brought us an impressive graphical feast and only this hype has been truly realized. Everyone who has seen this movie will say that AVATAR currently holds the record for best visual effects and perhaps best animated movie. And the headache? Well it was worth the ride…

Some people do not know it, but The Twilight Saga is based on the 4 novels from Stephenie Meyer. They apparently were a great success, because last year the first book was released on the white screen.

The Twilight Saga tells the story of Bella Swan, played by Kristen Stewart, who falls in love with a vampire. The vampire in question; Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson, you know the guy who dies in HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE. Of course having a relationship with a vampire brings complications, like him being nocturnal, stuff like bloodlust, direct sunlight and him not being able to cross water and all. But with these series all those vampirish issues all vanished and the genre became “just another romantic drama movie”.

NEW MOON continues the love story of Bella and Edward, when Edward eventually decides to leave her. He believes she will be in danger if she stays around him and his family so one day he is gone. Bella is heartbroken and eventually finds comfort in her friend Jacob Black (the new MTV hunk Taylor Lautner). Jacob helps Bella deal with her loss, when suddenly also Jacob wants distance in their relationship. After a little while Bella finds out why, Jacob is a werewolf the archenemies of vampires. Seriously why do women always fall for the mysterious and dangerous types?

Just when Jacob is about to lick like Lassie, Alice (Edward’s sister) returns to warn Bella. Edward dearest apparently is going to the Volturi in Italy to have himself killed. He strongly believes Bella already is dead so he wants to join her. Now isn’t that cute? Sounds like Romeo & Juliet doesn’t it? Bella stops Edward and they somehow manage to delude the Volturi and head back home to Forks. Edward promises he will never leave Bella and Jacob – the horny dog he is – basically does the same. The treaty the vampires and werewolves currently have, will certainly be influenced, all this because of a woman / girl / the evil gender.

I thought the whole classic drama stories were gone, but The Twilight Saga somehow shows it is still possible, not believable, but possible to some extent. But this is not what actually ruins the movie. Since my early childhood years I have been a fan of vampire stories, so I am one of those people who dislike the way NEW MOON (and TWILIGHT) is being shown.

• No vampires do not shine like diamonds when sunlight hits them, they frickin’ burn (to death).
• Vampires cannot swim, they cannot cross oceans! The have to be carried over (for example by hiding on a ship in their casket).
• Werewolves need a moon to change and if I stand correctly, they need a full moon. With NEW MOON we get to see Jacob and the gang shape shift as if they are part of a new Marvel series. I cannot recall even seeing a moon in this movie.
• And the list goes on…

Having this many flaws compared to the old (ancient) vampire stories, The Twilight Saga does not feel true to its genre. You are basically watching a love story with some “additions”. The above mentioned flaws could be overlooked if the acting was decent, but alas even this is not the case. At times I just had shivers down my spine, not because of the scare factor – not even one scary moment in the entire movie – but due to bad acting and the dialogue.

Example:
Edward Cullen: You promised you wouldn’t do anything stupid or reckless.
Bella Swan: You promised it would be as if you never existed. You lied.

Or:
Bella Swan: Jasper… No fair with the mood control thing.
Jasper Whitlock: [smiles] Sorry Bella… Happy uh… Nevermind… Really?

The last one is even more confusing, since Bella is supposed to be immune to the “extra” vampire powers each one of them have. And when did vampires even have all these extra powers? Do they not have enough strengths already? O wait I forgot, the series are not true to the classic version of a vampire.

I think you are getting my drift why this movie – or better yet the entire series – should be avoided. I can only think of one reason to actually go and watch it; if you got the hots for Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner (or both if that is your thing). You will get to see them bare-chested and decently buffed. So the true question is; do you like pale hotties or nicely coloured ones?