First ‘New Moon’ Reviews: Smells Like Teen Spirit

The first batch of Twilight: New Moon reviews have cut straight to the heart of what makes the series such a phenomenon with teens: It's the new Nirvana! In the early 90s, a lost generation of mopey teens attached their pubescent anxieties onto a gravelly voiced drug addict, rendering him so much larger than life that he eventually burst. The same thing is happening two decades later with the Twilight franchise, except that drug addict is now embodied by a self-conscious alcoholic who is equally uneasy with his fame. Of the six New Moon reviews on the net so far, four of them mention "angst" at least once, a word that perhaps best defines Nirvana's most expressed (and expressive) emotion. Following that same angsty logic, Twilight is also the new Kierkegaard, Kafka, Heidegger, Salinger, and Sartre.

The Sydney Morning Herald: This is the world of metaphor-laden angst dominating any real physical romance, and for the most part any real action at all.

FILM INK: Sooky Bella eventually finds solace in the arms of her childhood friend, Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who is equally tortured. He loves Bella, and is also riddled with angst because he’s, yes, a werewolf, charged with protecting the woods from vampires, including Bella’s beloved Edward. Cue tortured love triangle.

Emanuel Levy: In an effort to protect her, Edward decides to leave Bella just after her 18th birthday. He thinks he’s helping her by ending the relationship, failing to realize the torment and the angst involved in such a break-up.

Sci-fi Movie Page: Like a real angsty teenager the movie is oh-so serious and humourless (expect for one scene involving a Triple Date from Hell which boasted some lame attempts at obvious humor) ... Clocking in at 130 minutes New Moon has more teenage angst that any reasonable adult should be allowed to endure.