‘Twilight: New Moon’ is terrible. Obviously.

Contributing writer Josh Miller takes on the insanity known as “Twilight.” The franchise’s second installment, “New Moon,” is available on Blu-Ray and DVD March 20. Please don’t buy it.

The sequel to 2008’s “Twilight” needs no introduction. The film has broken box office records and the next film in the series is due in just a matter of months. Like it or not, the Twilight Saga is a cultural phenomenon in both film and book form. After seeing the first film, I was unable to grasp the appeal of this series and now, having seen “New Moon,” I am still dumbfounded. In my review “Twilight,” I said everything here is underwritten, characters and plot included” and “no one with a knowledge or appreciation of American cinema would call Twilight a good movie.” “New Moon” does flesh out the main characters a bit more but I stand by the latter statement. “New Moon” is certainly not a good film by any means.

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) finds her relationship with vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) strained as her birthday passes along with the realization that she’ll be growing older while he stays the same age. After Edward announces to Bella that he and his family are leaving Forks, Bella sinks into a depression while growing closer to Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who has a “surprise” himself. I’m not spoiling anything for anyone by saying Jacob Black is a werewolf, which I guess is supposed to create an interesting, mythical love triangle.

Teenage girls have raved about “Twilight” as being “Romeo & Juliet” for the 21^st Century and “New Moon” makes no attempt to hide that parallel. There are direct references to the famous Shakespeare work throughout the movie; a mistake, as it reminds the audience of a much more poignant love story.

The first film was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who had previously made a film about teenagers called “Thirteen.” On “New Moon” she’s replaced by Chris Weitz who also previously directed a film about teenagers called “American Pie.” I was surprised to see that Weitz handles the material better than Hardwicke did, but this isn’t a case of a director turning water into wine. No director could with this story.

How can a “love story”  be told without charm, poignancy, or intelligence? It’s a teenage love story, yes, so one must expect the characters to be overdramatic and/or naïve but what separates these characters from others in teen love stories is that these characters are caricatures and ‘overdramatic’ skates dangerously close to psychotic. After Edward leaves Bella, her reaction is like that of a P.O.W. returning from Vietnam. Most parents would commit their teenage daughter for reacting the way Bella does and they’d be right to do so.

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg has made no effort to improve upon the melodramatic dialogue between Edward and Bella, which weakens the film significantly. I felt nauseous watching the two speak to each other in the first film and now Bella gets to chat the same way with other characters. The banter is nothing but clichéd, repetitive drivel. “Bella, you give me everything just by breathing” and constant assurances of “I don’t want you to get hurt” seem both forced and familiar. I’d like to see how the dialogue would sound if its writer wasn’t trying to obviously to be clever. If that isn’t bad enough, the fact that Pattinson doesn’t even seem to be trying to play Edward should be. Once again, Pattinson spends the small amount of screen time he has trying to look brooding. As Edward, Pattinson is never convincing and usually just looks nauseous…Who can blame him with some of the lines he is given?

There were aspects of “New Moon” that surprised me. Stewart and Lautner have more chemistry than Stewart and Pattinson and there are a few scenes between the two that offer a hint of credibility which, alas never lasts very long. “New Moon” also has the terrific Michael Sheen in the small role of Aro, an elder of an Italian clan of vampires called the Volturi. Sheen manages to wade through the material unscathed and actually giving one of the films’s only acting performances. Lautner prances around with his shirt off through almost the entire film, while Stewart complains about her life, and Pattinson tries not to vomit.

I can’t write this without mentioning the special effects though. For a movie that is guaranteed to tear the box-office apart, you’d think the studio could spend a little extra on special effects. The werewolves in the film look like distant cousins of Scooby-Doo from the live action films.

Despite my efforts, I can’t find much to like about this series and I certainly can’t find the appeal. There is no intrigue, no suspense, and no emotion that feels real. The characters are completely overdramatic and illogical, which is clearly why the story hits so close to home with teenage girls, but beyond that…There’s nothing. Both films have left me emotionally unfulfilled and a little more mentally handicapped than when I started watching them. The “cliffhanger” at the end of the film made me laugh though. Not the ending itself, but the realization that I didn’t care to know where the story would go from there. The pointlessness of telling this story is summed up for me with one brief scene towards the end of the film. Edward asks Bella to wait five years for him to change her into a vampire, to which she replies “too long.” If five years is “too long,” how exactly is Bella intending to handle eternity?

The final song that plays over the credits is “Meet Me on the Equinox” by Death Cab for Cutie, which is the best thing to come from this film in my opinion. The chorus is simply “Everything, everything ends.”

This is the most profound line you will find watching “New Moon” from the beginning to the end of the credits. Everything does, in fact, end…And one day, not far away from now, so will the popularity of this series and anyone being under the impression that it’s worth their time.

GRADE: D+