FOXSYLVANIA

– – I’m not into the Twilight saga, ’cause it’s geared in large measure for teenaged girls; romance just ain’t my thing, especially when the romantic leads spend much of their time staring intensely, pining away,  and brooding.  The fact that werewolves appear in the movie, however, rouses my furry interest. Vampires are OK, especially if they’re cool and classy like Dracula, Lestat, or Angel, but bring in even a mundane werewolf, and you’ve got me hooked!

So let’s talk werewolves, which is where it’s at– – this movie deviates from the usual trend of showing a nice, slow, and usually agonizing werewolf transformation.  In my opinion, slow and agonizing is the way to go, so the fans can appreciate it as well as the significance of what’s going on. The lycanthropes of New Moon, however, explode mid-leap into a fully-transformed state, with shreds of clothing flying off them. To their credit, the New Moon weres are impressively large, and are not cookie-cutter interchangeable clones; they are distinguishable by size and fur color, with alpha male Sam being the largest and having black fur.  Other weres are russet-hued, silvery, dark brown, and dark grey.  They also use the personalized eyes of the actors in the digital wolves, which are otherwise as realistic as possible. An additional plus is that the actors are mostly of Native American descent.

So paws up for the wild things, even though this shallow romance has been rated with only  **1/2 out of four stars…