New Moon a la MST3K

One of my favorite TV shows of all time was Mystery Science Theater 3000. A guy and two robots riffing on old sci-fi movies. Go figure, but to me, it was hilarious.

Recently my husband showed me a review of the New Moon DVD in Home Theater Magazine (yes, hubby is a subscriber) written by the head writer and star of MST3K, Michael J. Nelson (the human star, not one of the robots).

I thought it was funny and well-written, and so I want to share. Please keep in mind, I am not a Twilight basher. I was entertained by the books until book 4, but the movies in my opinion have been awful. I was hoping to link to the review, but it was not available on the mag's site, so here is the majority of it:

If you like your vampires thin, sparkly, wan, and suicidally depressed and your werewolves hunky, shirtless, and body-waxed to within an inch of their lives, then you'll love New Moon. However, chance are good that you do not. In that case, New Moon will be an excruciating experience. The charisma-free leads stammer, pause, sulk, brood, and mumble in a spectacularly listless fashion. They make Morrissey seem like a caffeinated Mary Lou Retton. If the tortured pauses were removed, the running time would be reduced by a good hour. But as it is, the mopiness stretches on endlessly to two hours and ten minutes!

The plot takes up where Twilight left off. Quasi-goth heroine Bella gets dumped by her bloodsucking boyfriend Edward and spirals into depression. (Her depressed is virtually undistinguishable from her perky, but never mind.) She can only cure her blues by restoring dirt bikes with her childhood friend and part-time werewolf, the toothy Jacob. He and his lupine friends protect Bella, who is being stalked by a gymnastic, ginger-headed, homicidal vampire with the less-than-terrifying name of Victoria. However, Bella can't free herself from her obsession with the shimmering Edward. So she flies to Italy, along with her telepathic vampire friend, Alice, where Edward is going to make a spectacle of himself in order to break the laws of the Volturi, the ancient and outrageously foppish vampire council in the hopes they will kill him. Make sense? No, no it does not, not even a little. The purpose of the whole enterprise is to allow teen girls to wallow in its soupy blend of doomed romance, self-pity, and solipsism, while ogling the "dangerous" boys (the danger is mitigated somewhat by the fact that the boys in the series tend to look like girls) to a soundtrack of twee shoe-gazing music. It is dreadful stuff, and the fact that our nation's youth is lapping it up and surrounding themselves with it alarms me. I was also a tad discouraged that our heroine stands idly by, not uttering a peep of disapproval, when a group of innocent men, women, and children are torn apart by the Volturi. What the hell?