close to the book but not great a film. annoying & frustrating

Rating: 4/10 (20 May 2013)

The Twilight books were a guilty pleasure, I enjoyed them (to a point). I don't pretend they were works of literary genius, or the plot was particularly clever, and don't get me started on sparkles, but they were a diversion and I bought them all and saw all the films (mainly on DVD).
Like first book in the series, the second film sticks closely to the books. In the book it works better than on screen despite the cinematography being very attractive and it's a nice film to watch in terms of the view. However the acting and lack of engaging script let the film down and it's a shallow experience. The interaction with Bella and Jacob and his family is the best, and the whole Cullen family scenes, but all the Edward angst and back and forth is just painful. It is in this film that we first meet the Volturi and whilst they are supposed to be scary they were a little too camp but it was interesting to see their workings and history. There's a lot of CGI that works to varying degrees of success, but sets and costume designs etc are good. Edward's desire to keep Bella safe are admirable in the book but in the film the lack of communication - dialogue - between the two is just plain frustrating and annoying. Jacob was the sanest thing in film number two.