Darker, with more action, it keeps the level of the previous films, which is not a very good thing.

Rating: 5/10 (26 March 2020)

This film was based on a series of "best seller" books about the romance between a vampire and a young human. I never read the books (nor do I intend to), but if Edward and Bella's love story was supposed to be epic, something didn't work. Despite this, this film was a box office champion, the teenagers consumed it well and the studio rubbed their hands in satisfaction, just as with the two previous films.
The plot boils down to this: again together, Edward and Bella look happy, but a succession of mysterious murders in neighboring Seattle indicates that Victoria, the couple's enemy, may be trying to raise an army of newly created vampires, which may endanger the entire Cullen clan and also Jacob's pack. On the other hand, the threat of the Volturi to interfere hangs over everyone and Bella doesn't seem to know how to deal with Jacob, in love with her, and whom she doesn't want to hurt.
Again we saw a change in the director's chair, with the arrival of David Slade. From a distance, we saw an improvement in direction with his arrival, showing the lack of capacity of its previous occupants. There is an improvement in the environment and in the story told, which becomes more profound and involving as the danger and the action become more and more present in the film. The fight scenes are very good, but very fast, which helped the film acquire a somewhat uneven pace, with fast scenes and much slower sequences. In addition, there are still serious problems inherited from previous films and which are closely linked to the way the actors behaved.
In fact, each film accentuates the feeling that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were gross casting errors and never adapted well to the characters and each other. There is almost no chemistry between them, despite an improvement in the dialogues and the story told. Their characters' romance no longer seems like a childish crush, as in the previous two films, but it is still a long way from looking as breathtaking as it was supposed to. With the exception of some very concrete scenes, there is no involvement or depth in the way both actors worked, and the romantic scenes seem like pauses in which we can disconnect a little from what we are seeing and, for example, go to the bathroom for a minute. . Taylor Lautner is good, but not as good as in the previous film, where he had more presence and showed more talent. Bryce Dallas Howard was a pretty good Victoria and a convincing villain. Billy Burke and Ashley Greene are very good and maintain the level they had so far.
Technically, the film maintains the good CGI, visible in the work of the wolves and in the extraordinarily choreographed action scenes. Howard Shore's soundtrack is very good, dark in the right measure and helped keep the soundtrack as one of the best strengths of the films in this tetralogy. Good scenarios, props, and very good large-scale images of cold and snowy landscapes complete the technical work.
This film is the darkest and most serious in tetralogy, but also the one that gives the audience the most action. We continue to face a dull story, but the introduction of these elements was welcome and helped the film to become more palatable and less boring.