A far superior movie to Twilight and looking forward to Eclipse

Rating: 8/10 (20 November 2009)

I'll admit it straight out I'm a huge Twilight fan but after reading some poor reviews here and some in the papers I wasn't excepting much from New Moon. This didn't bode well for me as I had been disappointed by Twilight.
But what can I say I was pleasantly (total understatement) surprised. The movie was very faithful to the book and the bits that were added in worked extremely well. I especially liked that there were far more comedic moments which I felt were needed even as I read the book. Taylor Lautner filled the R-Patz shaped hole in my heart. He was endearing and sweet as Jacob, I found myself loving him, where in the books I really despised him. Pattinson does what he does, effortlessly and sexy as hell, there's nothing major for him to do in this movie but he didn't phone it in which made me feel that he cared about this character and the franchise. Charlie is quickly becoming a more rounded character and I'm loving his transformation on the big screen, the man is far to 2-D in the book. But the best surprise here is Stewart who seemed awkward and bored in Twilight. Here she captures Bella's pain of losing Edward perfectly. The chemistry between her and Taylor is immense and almost rivals that of her and Pattinson. I'm so glad she upped her game as for me she was the major disappointment in Twilight.
Christ Weitz has done an excellent job and has cut through a lot of the cheesy lines that can make New Moon too angsty and almost patronising. The extra action is great and I thought the wolves looked amazing. Even the grunts and the thundering noise they made as the sped through the woods was incredible.
If there was any fault there wasn't enough of the Volutori but then again there isn't that much of them in the book anyway. Oh and the bit with Edward and Bella running through the forest made me burst out laughing which I doubt was its intention but all an all I enjoyed it immensely. I went with serious Twilight fans and girls who had never read the books and we all agreed, a far superior movie to Twilight and looking forward to Eclipse...only 225 days to go :)