I think that this is sightly better than the turgid first instalment. "Bella" (Kristen Stewart) is now fairly firmly attached to "Edward Cullen" (Robert Pattinson) and that puts her life in danger. When they realise that, and that folks are starting to suspect that the dapper doctor “Carlisle” (Peter Facinelli) is really “Dorian Gray”, he and his family abruptly move away leaving her bereft and sad. After some months of moping and bad dreams, “Bella” starts to take solace rebuilding a motor bike with the washboard-chested “Jacob" (Taylor Lautner) who turns out to have some secrets of his own that give "doggy style" a whole new meaning! This has marginally more pace than the first film: the absence of the ponderous and repetitious falling in love scenes and of the glisteningly moody Pattison for much of it helps liven the thing up a bit but the performances and screenplay are all still pretty weak. The frequently shirtless Lautner is very easy on the eye but as wooden as they come and Michael Sheen is positively hammy as Voltari supremo "Aro" who has a menacing smile straight out of "Rocky Horror". It's far too long, it resorts to the soundtrack to replace meaningful (?) dialogue a few times too often and some judicious pruning in the middle might have made this a bit better - but the series appears to be, very gradually, picking up steam. I still think I’d have enjoyed “Punch Face” better, though.

A bunch of lore was dropped, but other than that this movie was kind of pointless. An extra half star cause it gave us Rosyln and Alice content.

> (3.5/5, originally reviewed 1/3/25)