Loved the first one, HATED this second one

Rating: 2/10 (22 November 2009)

The only reason I give this film 2 stars (and not 1) is that the acting was good. I thought all the actors did a good job of portraying angsty (melodramatic, self-engrossed, intense, my-life-really-sucks-even-though-there's-nothing-really-wrong-with-it attitude) teenage attitudes.
That said, I HATED numerous aspects of this second film in the series. Bella--who reveals herself as a massive flake who won't make her own decisions and who is basically a doormat--spends the whole movie being little but a glorified doormat. She's just in the movie to sit around and preen while two guys fight over her. The thing is, as a guy myself, I couldn't understand what everyone thought was so amazing and attractive and wonderful about Bella. I simply couldn't understand everyone's infatuation with her. She's good looking, true, but she's boring, has no life or hobbies, no great personality (hardly any personality at all), nothing interesting about her, and poor character on top of it all: she's selfish, flaky, indecisive, a bad friend, a poor daughter, and a horrible girlfriend. I hope teenage girls don't take notes from Bella because they'll get the wrong message. Good guys like girls who have their own interests, who are opinionated, who can make decisions and take responsibility for their decisions, who are fun and self-empowered, who treat other people well. Bella was none of those things. I loathed her and I loathed the fact that Edward--who should have enough experience in 109 years of living to eschew such a simpering melodramatic empty husk of a girl like Bella--doted on her and indulged her. And Jacob, the really GOOD guy...I constantly wished that he'd realize that he was WAY too good for Bella and let her know that she had things to figure out and he wasn't going to just "be around" to be her surrogate emotional boyfriend, while Edward is her physical boy toy, etc.
Other than my hatred of Bella's character and how everyone pampered her and coddled her, I also thought the story was disconnected, boring, and repetitive. Indeed, when Bella first goes to hang out with Jake she alludes to how strong and "beautiful" he is. She virtually paints him as just another Edward: the next super-human boy toy to bend to her whims. Lame. The story just hops around from scene to scene with very little to connect the dots. This film just lacked a lot of the "magic" that made the first film special: from the awesome soundtrack, to the fact that she had a lot of "normal life" to deal with like parents, and friends, and stuff going on. In this movie it seemed more like a TV show where the characters don't really have to work, never really go home, and we don't even know if they sleep, eat, or crap.
I HATED this movie and highly recommend that people avoid seeing it. If you need your vamp fix, watch Twilight again.