Awful!

Rating: 1/10 (22 February 2009)

First of all, I love all 4 books and really wanted to like this movie. I went in with low expectations because the previews didn't make it look that great - but I was surprised that it was even worse than I thought it was going to be!
The only thing I liked about the movie is that the characters look like I thought they were supposed to when I read about them. And I liked the Cullen family - all except Edward. In the books, Edward is the most romantic guy you could ever dream of. But in the movie, he is just whiny and awkward. It reminded me of Hayden Christenson's butchering of Anniken Skywalker in the Star Wars movies. Robert Pattison is nice to look at, but his acting is terrible! And Kristen Stewart is not much better.
I think the thing that was the worst for me when watching this movie, is knowing how the romance is supposed to play out, and instead I found myself thinking "why do they even like each other?" There is nothing really remarkable or special about the movie Edward or Bella. They are both very wooden and one dimensional. The scenes in the book that show how they fall in love and the intense passion they have for each other are all kind of jumbled into one really choppy, uncomfortable scene.
When reading the book, the thing that really moves the story along is the characters - which makes for kind of a boring movie - so I knew that they were going to have to change some things around to make it more movie friendly. But the stuff that was changed didn't really add anything to the story, and the character development was totally lost in transition.
All in all, this movie was unwatchable, even for people who haven't read the books. It's super boring and the acting is bad. I actually had to re-read the book so that I could remember how Edward and Bella's story is supposed to be and try to forget I ever saw the movie as it nearly ruined the whole series for me. Hopefully the new director for New Moon will be able to make a movie that is worth watching, but I'm not holding my breath since he still has to work with the same actors...