In true R+J fashion, there's mistaken death, attempted suicide, and then—in a twist from our old Bard's tale—a dramatic rescue. Of course, with soapy and somewhat unsophisticated source material such as Stephanie Meyer's, a fair amount of cheese manages to sneak in. There was plenty of awkward laughter from the audience to go along with the few scenes that featured awkward performances of the awkward dialog. It was um ... awkward. But somewhat charming and fitting all the same. Fortunately, there are also some snappy quips, mostly delivered by the much better screen version of Jessica (Anna Kendrick), the ever-easy going Charlie (Billy Burke) and the pale-faced James Dean himself (Robert Pattinson), along with captivating exchanges, especially between Bella and Jacob towards the beginning of their "relationship."

There are a few notable technical achievements in New Moon. The time passage that is expressed with four practically empty pages in the book is done with a 360 x 4 (that's 1440 degrees of circle!) shot of Bella looking out her bedroom window. The window beautifully shows the seasons changing as October turns into January with no physical movement on Bella's behalf representing her virtually comatose mental state. Bella's hallucinations of Edward are made more real when she actually sees a spectre of him instead of just hearing his voice in her head, giving her desire for the reckless even more motivation.

As for the battle sequences: I can see why Weitz was well suited to direct this picture, because Jacob versus Paul beats the polar bear versus polar bear fight in The Golden Compass. The Victoria/Jake standoff is just as cool, and had the added bonus of being underscored by the best song on the soundtrack. Wish I could tell you what that was, but whipping out the Shazam app in the middle of the theater would have been rude. I'll venture to guess it's whatever Thom York wrote, but I could be wrong. (Sidenote: The soundtrack is somewhat brilliant, but the score is horrible and distracting. This is strange because I normally like Alexandre Desplat's compositions.) On the other hand, I have an issue with the vampire on vampire fight in Italy. Not technically, but story-wise. Yes, the Voluri are older and stronger, but Edward's convenient mind-reading talents should have helped him not get his head smashed so much. It's kind of an important strategy later on in the Saga. Finally, the hair and make-up team does an absolute bang-up job on Dakota Fanning. I never realized her eyes were so freaking giant until they were red. Michael Sheen is also made to look quite creepy as Aro.

Edward and Bella are reunited but still locked in conflict over her future status as an immortal when the film finally cuts to black and the credits roll. The formerly mentioned obnoxious teen behind me shouts "I love Chris Weitz!" Now, no offense to the director—he did a really solid job on the film—but he's a not-all-that-attractive, middle-aged fellow. Teenage declarations of love for him are just further proof of rampant fandom. I may not be venomous in my devotion to the saga (or a teenager at that), but I'm not ashamed to admit my love for the tame vamps was sustained enough by New Moon to be excited for the next two cinematic chapters. Now how many days until Eclipse?