Not as bad as some say ( Mild Spoilers only if you haven't read the books)

Rating: 7/10 (23 November 2009)

New Moon is the second in a series based on four books by Stephanie Meyer. For the most part, the fan base is teenage girls because that is who Stephanie Meyer was really writing for. Now I will agree that some of things that Bella does would be a bad influence, but lets realize that this is all a work of fiction and that normal girls wouldn't do such things knowing this is fiction. After all, vampires and werewolves do not exist. This review is based on what I read of the books and how the movies themselves are bringing this story together on the screen. I have seen both Twilight and New Moon, and found that the movie New Moon worked much better than the movie Twilight if you go by the books. Now I will explain why.
As in the first film, this film had some hokey dialoque, but when I compare it to the Twilight movie, I found it wasn't as bad. Maybe it's because the actors have gotten a little more experience and can show more emotion. It just didn't come off as awkward.
Now involving the chemistry between the actors, i still believe there is room for improvement, but once again it came off much better in New Moon. Maybe it's because of the new director, I'm not sure, or maybe its the experience issue again. Whatever it might be, it didn't have me wanting to throw up like in Twilight. Taylor Lautner, who plays the werewolf Jacob, had a lot more to do this time, and he pulled it off better than I though he would. THere was still some clumsiness between Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart, but they also improved as the movie went on. And was it me or did they use some kind of special effect to make Lautner taller. He really looked over six foot tall even though he is only about 5'10 or 5'11 in real life. But I guess, packing on muscle like he did for this part would make anybody seem physically bigger.
Putting dialoque and chemistry aside, the biggest improvement however was in the action and special effects. The wolves looked pretty good, and by bringing the Quilette tribe into the story, that helped with the pacing and made this second more interesting. Even the effects for the Vampires were much better, probably because they had more of a budget this time. I still think there could've been more action, but I think will get a lot more in Eclipse. THe other good thing about this movie was the VOlturi, they seemed threatening enough and those actors pulled their parts off well enough.
I've come to realize that the Twilight Series, which was targeted towards younger teen aged girls when first written, should be looked at as a group of movies in much the same way. I've seen better and I've seen worse, but this movie isn't half as bad as some people think. It is not an academy award winner in anyway, but it does what it set out to do, and for that it gets a pass from me.