Rating: D+
Dir: Chris Weitz
Star: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Ashley Greene
Well, if the first one had its moments, the sequel is mostly unredeemably awful, provoking hoots of derision every time Team Jacob showed up, inevitably with their shirts off. Really, if I were Chief of Police, my daughter went missing, and was returned being carried by some topless guy, I’d consider him a person of interest, rather than saying thanks and letting him go. Not so here, which is largely a pale retread of the original – Bella lusts after a guy she can’t have – with the vampire replaced by the werewolf Jacob (Lautner), Edward having left the country for a spot of international mopery.
Throw in some painfully obvious Romeo and Juliet references – that whirring sound is William S. spinning in his grave – and you’ve got something almost awful enough to make me pine for the return of Edward Pattinson’s eyebrows. Lautner’s abs give a better performance than he does, and get about as much screen-time. But there are three scenes which stand out, rescuing this from a worse grade. And that they only move the needle up to D+, should give you some idea of how truly dreadful much of this is.
The camera circling round a moping Bella, as the seasons change. The wife of James, returning to take out Edward’s mate, in the same way Edward took out hers, and the ensuing battle with were-Jacob (even if the question of where he and his cronies get their apparently infinite supply of shorts, is never answered). And the scene where Bella and Edward face the Volturi, centuries-old Italian vampires. They are led by Michael Sheen, with Dakota Fanning as a minion, who can cause exquisite pain with her mind. A film about them would be infinitely better; I also note the performance complete’s Sheen set of the holy trinity of ultimate cinematic evil, having also played a werewolf and Tony Blair. Those moments don’t come anywhere near justifying the 130 minutes to which this is stretched.