A weaker sequel

Rating: 5/10 (14 May 2012)

Set soon after the original 'Twilight' film this one opens with Bella worrying about the fact that she will age while her vampire boyfriend Edward will remain forever young... it soon appears that isn't something she should have been worrying about as he soon announces that he and the rest of Cullen clan are moving away and they will never see each other again. Believing she has been abandoned Bella sinks into a depression until one day she puts herself in a dangerous situation and sees a vision of Edward. In order to keep seeing him she decides to play with danger some more. To do this she acquires to broken motorbikes and sets about repairing them with her friend Jacob. Over time they grow closer until one day he too refuses to see her... it turns out he is a werewolf! To make matters even harder for her the vampire Victoria is after her again. After an event occurs that leads Edward to believe Bella has died he decides that in true 'Romeo and Juliet' fashion he must kill himself too; with Alice Cullen's help Bella must race across the world to show him that she is still alive.
I'm not in the target demographic for this series of films but as I'd heard good reviews I thought I'd watch then when they were on television; the first one turned out better than I expected but unfortunately I don't think this one is as good. Once Edward has gone Bella spends the first half of the film just moping about and then gets closer to Jacob who isn't the most interesting of characters; even when we learn he is a werewolf. Talking of the werewolves the CGI did look impressive making them very wolf-like; the problem was the way they transformed from human to werewolf... it happened in a fraction of a second and thus was far less impressive that the slow transformations used in classic werewolf films like 'An American Werewolf in London' and 'The Company of Wolves'... although I suspect such transformations may have been considered to frightening for a film aimed at younger teens. Thankfully the film improves when we get back to the vampires; it helps the head vampire is played by an actor as good as Michael Sheen, it is a pity we didn't see more of his character, in an even smaller role Dakota Fanning impresses as Jane, a vampire who can inflict pain on people telepathically... hopefully we will see more of their characters in later instalments. Of the main cast Kristen Stewart does a good job as Bella, Robert Pattinson is okay as Edward and the third main actor, Taylor Lautner, seemed to be there so he could appeal to teenaged girls by spending most of his screen time looking fit without his shirt on. I'm sure this is a film for the fans (and there is nothing wrong with that), you certainly need to have watched 'Twilight' first to know what is going on as no time is wasted explaining who everybody is for newcomers.