Published: November 20, 2009 10:54 pm      

‘New Moon’ a hit with most viewers

Midnight marked the magical hour for “Twilight” fans as “New Moon,” the second movie in the Stephenie Meyer series, hit the big screen.

If early estimates are correct, “New Moon” smashed the previous midnight record held by “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” with revenues of $26.3 million.

About 344 “Twilight” fans at Linway Plaza Cinemas helped add to those midnight numbers.

“It was worth the three-hour wait,” Topeka resident Tammy Wallace said following the movie’s release early Friday morning. She was impressed with the special effects and “I sort of like the way it ended.” Wallace and a friend waited in line three hours for tickets to go on sale earlier that afternoon.

Thirteen-year-old Topeka resident Patrick Stahl disagreed on the ending, “I don’t like the way they ended it. I can’t believe they ended it right there.” But overall, Stahl said, “I think it rocked.”

“New Moon” is the darkest of the four-novel series and it sets up the scenes for the next two books, which will also be made into movies, “Eclipse” and “Breaking Dawn.”

Basically — and there are no spoilers here — 18-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) has been in an all-consuming relationship with Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a vampire who is eternally 17. Bella wants to stop aging by becoming a vampire so she can live eternally with Edward. Edward wants her to stay human. Bella is also being hunted by vampire Victoria because of what happened in the first movie.

To keep Bella safe, Edward and his “vegetarian” family of vampires, decide to move away. This leaves Bella in a complete depressed funk and unguarded. She turns to her best friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), a Quileuete Indian who also happens to have a secret of his own. Jacob is 16, but has suddenly become buff and a lot more emotional.

Bella hangs with Jacob until she has to go save Edward from the only way a vampire can commit suicide — making the Volturi kill him. The Volturi live in Italy and are vampire royalty with a lot of talent for creating pain.

Needless to say, Edward and Bella reunite, creating a rivalry between Edward and Jacob.

And that’s all that can be said without giving anything away — especially the ending.

For the most part, fans raved about the movie but were in two camps about the ending.

Richard Gumienny of Topeka enjoyed the movie. “It was better than the first,” he said. “I thought it was great. I liked the ending.”

“It was really good,” Millersburg resident Melissa Beechy said. “I liked the Volturi scene. It really brings the movie to life and the end was a cliffhanger.”

Adding to the positive reviews was Eli Yutzy of Wolcottville. “I’ve never been into a movie more,” he said. “It just gets better and better.”

But a young group of men said they disagreed with the others.

Brandon Buckles of Goshen said, ‘It was boring. It just stopped.”

His friend Robert Huffman of Goshen agreed and added, “It was a stupid ending. There was no action.”

It appeared the young men were in the minority, though.