A little better than the first... but that's not saying much

Rating: 4/10 (29 July 2011)

For the first thirty minutes of the movie, I felt that it was just the first movie all over again. Nothing interesting was happening, Bella and Edward's relationship was going nowhere, and everything was poorly paced and poorly acted out. Then after the Cullens celebrate Bella's 18th birthday and Bella accidentally cuts herself causing one of the vampires to attack her Edward decides it is too dangerous to be around her and leaves. Then the movie gets worse. As the next twenty minutes are spent watching Bella wander in the woods, moan in bed, and write letters to Alice(Edward's sister) explaining her sorrow and that she wishes they would all come back(even though Alice will never even get those letters). And we're treated to a scene where the camera circles around Bella sitting by her bedroom window as the captions tell us that months have passed. And what happens during that long scene... absolutely nothing.
The film finally starts getting interesting when Bella starts spending time with her childhood friend Jacob Black. Bella and Jacob start a relationship but it's not long before Jacob finds out that he is a werewolf and he joins a gang of other werewolves. He also tries to tell Bella to stop seeing him, but that works just as well as when Edward did it. The werewolves begin to defend Bella from an evil vampire named Victoria, who is after Bella because of the death of her mate James who was killed when he tried to eat Bella in the last movie. All the while, Bella sees images of Edward telling her not to do reckless stuff, but she doesn't listen and gets into one pointless misadventure after the other(like riding a motorcycle, jumping off a cliff etc.) The jumping off the cliff thing actually has some significance as Alice sees a vision of it and thinks Bella has died. Edward thought so as well, which causes him to try exposing himself by standing in the sun. Bella goes to save him in time and is introduced to the Volturi, who find out that none of their powers work on Bella. And then the events that follow are just like the last movie; a fight happens, then twenty minutes of nothing interesting at all. Seriously, the climaxes for these movies are awful, I just find myself asking 'How long until it's over?' every time. And the movie ends on a cliffhanger, where Edward asks Bella to marry him.
This film was bad, but not as bad as the first. For one thing, Bella and Jacob were childhood friends which makes the chemistry between them a little more convincing. And the middle of the film when the Cullens are absent and the werewolves are studied further are some of the better parts of the film. But overall, it's just not a film for people who didn't like the last one. If you're a fan of the series, go right ahead and watch this film. If not, give it a miss.