SHEALA KONECSNI
Opinions Writer

The Earth must have gone deaf last Friday night as “Twi-hards” everywhere screamed over the release of the second installment of the Twilight saga: New Moon.

After just one weekend, Summit Entertainment announced that their new vampire flick made $140.7 million and is officially in third place for all-time opening weekends behind The Dark Knight ($158.4 million) and Spiderman 3 ($151.1 million).

The saga follows the book series written by Stephenie Meyer involving a Romeo and Juliet-type love between a high school girl, Bella, played by Kristen Stewart and Edward, a vampire, played by Robert Pattinson.

A forbidden love like theirs is cursed with constant turmoil. Because Bella’s blood is so irresistible and because vampires drink blood, Edward leaves Bella in order to give her a chance for a normal life. To fill the hole in her chest that Edward left, Bella turns to her friend Jacob, played by Taylor Lautner.

As one can only imagine, a gorgeous vampire ex-boyfriend + a hot new best friend + a heartbroken confused young girl = a love triangle. To make the situation even more complicated, the new best friend recently found out that he is in fact a werewolf!

Standing in line for New Moon on opening night, it was easy to see that fans are completely divided into Team Edward and Team Jacob. Even though most fans have read the entire four part series and are fully aware of the ending, we can’t help but be biased toward one character or the other. In some cases, the screaming Twi-hards forget the distinction between character and actor and lose focus on what exactly they’re screaming about.

As the theatre went dark and the title appeared across the screen, the high-pitched screeching began. The theatre fell silent for maybe a minute then erupted in catcalls as Edward appeared on screen.

The adolescent shrieking did not end there. It continued as Edward and Bella kissed for the first time, as we saw Jacob for the first time, when Jacob first removed his shirt, when Edward removed his shirt and when Jacob stood shirtless in the rain.

Once I was able to ignore the screams that surrounded me, I became entirely focused on the film at hand. If you were disappointed with the special effects in the first movie, well, they were definitely kicked up a notch in the second. Not a big notch, but a notch nonetheless.

The transformations and portrayals of the werewolves left something to be desired. Our first glimpse of them shows a fuzzy, unfocused version which was not visually satisfying.

However, if you remember the horrible effects of Edward running through the trees carrying Bella in the first film, well, those are gone. The directors slowed down the quick movements, like the fight sequence between Edward and the Volturi — the vampire world’s royalty — so that the individual motions could be seen. This was fantastic and I couldn’t help thinking of The Matrix and Neo’s signature bullet dodge/limbo. Who doesn’t love that move?

As for following the novel, I felt the relationship between Bella and Jacob could have used a lot more development. The majority of the novel is about them creating a friendship and bond, figuring out if their friendship is more than simply platonic and struggling to adapt to Jacob’s new form — werewolf form that is, not the 30 pounds of muscle Taylor Lautner gained for the film.

The movie moved too quickly through their friendship on a rush to get Edward back on screen. Nothing against Edward, but honestly, after staring at Jacob’s perfectly engineered body for half the film, Edward’s shirtless scene was a bit of a let down.

The Volturi also didn’t inflict the pain, fear or power that rises off the pages of the novels. I’m not sure if I expected darker vampire mansions like in Underworld or what, but I wanted something that would give us a reason to understand why they have always had this power over the vampire masses.

All in all, I did enjoy the movie and I would give it a seven out of 10. To all those interested parties, I would say, if you didn’t like Twilight, you probably won’t like New Moon. If you loved Twilight, you will love New Moon. If you’re just intrigued and want to see what all the hype is about, I would suggest waiting at least a week for the posse of screaming, face-painted teen girls to dissipate somewhat or just wait until it comes out on DVD.

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graphic: Danni Siemens