Directed by Chris Weitz.
2009. Rated PG-13, 130 minutes.
Cast:
Kristen Stewart
Robert Pattinson
Taylor Lautner
Billy Burke
Ashley Greene
Anna Kendrick
Michael Welch
Michael Sheen
Peter Facinelli
Rachelle Lefevre
Dakota Fanning
Gil Birmingham
Plot: Vampire Edward (Pattinson) decides the best, safest thing for Bella (Stewart) is for him and the rest of the Cullen to skip town. To get over her pain, Bella starts spending more time with Jacob (Lautner). Not only does Jacob pine for her like Edward, but he has a secret of his own.
The Good: It knows what its fans want. Therefore, we get a constant barrage of teen melodrama, including Bella lashing out at anyone who dares disagree with her. And since teenaged girls make up the core audience, we get lots of Jacob without a shirt. Yep, I need to hit the gym, but I digress. The action scenes, when we get them, are actually well done. Jacob and his buddies instantaneously wolfing out is spectacular. In fact, the whole movie looks great. It has a more polished look, with better special fx than the original.
The Bad: The tagline for this movie should’ve been “Now, with more emo!” Watching Bella sit around, literally for months, being totally depressed is…uh…depressing. Then, Edward and Jacob aren’t exactly rays of sunshine, either. All three are blatantly suicidal. It all amounts to beating us over the head with the saga’s main message: pre-marital sex is evil. As a dad of young girls, I appreciate the sentiment. However, here sex is a merciless villain punishing any who even think of it. No wonder Bella seems like she’s always thirty seconds from downing a bottle of sleeping pills and slitting her wrists. All that stuff aside, the dialogue is trite, predictable and delivered clunkily by the cast. The decisions these people make are consistently idiotic. Finally, the way the movie ends is an all-out insult to our collective intelligence. Given all we know about Bella, it is incomprehensible how this qualifies as some sort of cliff-hanger (see Spoiler, if you care...er...dare).
The Ugly: The wimpy regular guy who likes Bella, trying to watch a bloody action flick.
Recommendation: This is simple. If you’re a fan of the original and/or the books the movies are based on, have at it. If not, skip it.
MY SCORE: 2/10
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