For bringing a fairly poor book to life, they did a pretty good job.

Rating: 7/10 (22 November 2009)

There has been a great deal of criticism of the New Moon movie. Many have valid points, but we MUST look at the material the director had to work with. It was a book from the TWILIGHT SERIES OF NOVELS, therefore: the characters were not developed, the heroine is a co-dependent flake, there is no actual relationship between Edward and Bella apart from "Wow you're a vampire and can do vampire things" and "Wow, I want to suck your blood because your blood in particular sings to me"... etc - pretty hard to start with crap and make it wonderful, so let's not be too hard on the film makers. (Although admittedly, thoroughly addictive crap - I read the whole series in 5 days).
I really enjoyed the film. Liked how it stayed closely to the book, but did away with useless sections. It was brighter visually. The wolves looked great and I enjoyed the depiction of the Volturi. I look forward to seeing them again.
Yet, I digress. Kristen Stewart was actually not bad in this film. She certainly gave Bella a bit more spirit than in the Twilight movie. And she had good chemistry with Taylor Lautner (as Jacob). I found Robert Pattinson a bit lack-luster. I felt he didn't really show any real affection for her, and that their romance was not believable. Taylor Lautner was great as Jacob. Bubbly and fun, and pulled off the moody transformation pretty well.
Was sad to not see as much of the Cullens, but as others have said, it would have made for a very long movie.
As for the criticism it has received for pandering to fans of the book - why not? - just about every person belonging to the demographic of the movie has read the book.
Any other plot issues I had, or problems with the characters were problems I'd had with the story as told in the BOOKS. The books are far from perfect, and far from great literary works. But I enjoyed them for what they were, as I enjoyed this movie for what it was.