Flawed but entertaining

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2010)

At the time I post this there are 754 reviews. I doubt anyone is actually going to read this, but after reading through the first dozen or so, I just had to voice my opinion.
I really think some people just don't understand the characters. Edward is supposed to be cold. Don't hate him because he's beautiful. He's supposed to look like a model posing. Bella is supposed to be quiet. Anyone who's been around a teenager knows there are two kinds - the ones who never stop talking and the ones who never say anything. Bella is the quiet brooding type, who takes everything very seriously, and is both young and inexperienced and mature and thoughtful at the same time. This was explained in Twilight, when she made the decision to let her mother go and when she decided to stay with Edward. Jacob is supposed to be warm and sunny and crude and exuberant. He is the typical teenage boy full of testosterone and the opposite of Edward's suave coolness. So let's drop the whole acting is wooden, no expression, just reading lines crap. The actors are well-cast and interpret the roles true to the intent of the book.
Having said that, what is wrong with the movie? The Cullen's are under-utilized and Edward is hardly in the movie, but that is the way the book was written. In fact the first half of the book is snooze-fest with Bella moping around miserable. The film did a good job at picking up this pace. I particularly liked the time passage sequence with Bella at the window.
I think the effect of the wolf-transition could have been more interesting. It was too quick and I'm seeing better in The Wolfman trailer. The diamond effect on Edward's skin was much improved from Twilight and there were no awkward running scenes in this sequel. I'm not sure there is a way to film someone running with someone else on their back without it looking awkward but at least I was spared the feeling of watching a circus act on a unicycle.
The editing was too choppy and left out a lot of important plot elements. If I hadn't read the books I would have been very confused. It started when they failed to show Bella finding the motorcycles in the trash with sign noting "as is". This is symbolic of Bella's state of mind and wouldn't have taken but a few seconds of screen time. It wasn't particularly clear that Harry Clearwater was having a heart attack, since he had just been knocked down by a werewolf. How about an ambulance, stretcher, hospital, something? Bella's cliff dive didn't show any exhilaration. They did a great job filming Sam's arc into the water earlier - why the rush job on this much more important scene? And they totally flubbed the phone call scene that starts off the confusion about Bella's "death." It isn't clear that Charlie is actually planning Harry's funeral nor do they include Jacob's confusion over the caller. In the book he thinks it's Dr. Cullen, not Edward. Instead it comes across as intentionally cruel as opposed to a cascade of mistakes. I would have liked to have seen Bella and Alice en flight to Italy as it would have added gravity to the sequence. They were in a race against time, but you feel little of that tension. And then lastly, the pivotal scene in the square when Edward is about to reveal himself sputtered out at the end. In the book he actually thought he died and went to heaven, and was surprised to be in heaven as he thought he had no soul. This is important to his character development and just didn't come across on screen.
So I think this movie could have been much better, but I blame the director & crew, not the actors. It was still entertaining with its flaws and everyone in my audience gasped at the final line.