The Twilight Saga: New Moon

New Moon, or to give it its aggrandising, franchise-affirming full title The Twilight Saga: New Moon, is a film that will mean very little to you unless you've seen the first instalment, Twilight, and/or read Stephanie Meyer's bestselling books.

Where the first film was a relatively straightforward tale - new girl in town falls for handsome weirdo in school, weirdo turns out to be a vampire, they overcome their differences and become star-crossed lovers - New Moon is a rambling affair. In large part this is because the scenario established at the end of Twilight is overturned, and the leading man disappears for most of the film.

Bella (Kristen Stewart) is turning 18. She's keen to be turned into a vampire so she won't grow old while lover Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) remains a teenager forever. Edward doesn't approve of this idea. He believes he has no soul, and if Bella was turned, she'd lose hers too. So he announces he's leaving, along with the rest of his family, and will best protect her by never seeing her again.

Months of depression, angst and nightmares ensue. Bella only slowly recovers when her friendship with Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), a member of the local Quileute tribe, deepens. Though she doesn't shake her obsession with Edward - indeed, she discovers that if she's doing something risky, he'll appear to her. That doesn't stop the bond with Jacob deepening to a point where they're on the verge of becoming lovers. Then suddenly he rejects her too. Unfortunately, it transpires he's carrying a tribal gene that means he must join a group of werewolf territorial protectors.

This group, the Wolf Pack, is the best thing in the film, and it's a shame we don't see more of it. Aside from the obvious appeal to certain audiences of a bunch of buff young men going round in nothing but shorts, there's a nice dynamic here. Jacob joins five other young men (Chaske Spencer, Bronson Pelletier, Alex Meraz, Kiowa Gordon and Tyson Houseman) and they romp around, partially as horse-sized CGI wolves, partially as half-naked humans, fighting and teasing like a litter of boisterous pups.

The plot, such as it is, takes a turn when Bella finds out Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre), whose boyfriend was killed by the Cullens in the first film, is out for revenge. Can Jacob protect her? Maybe, but things get even more convoluted when Edward's sister Alice (Ashley Greene) has a vision that Bella has died. Believing her dead, Edward goes to the requisite vampire powers-that-be in Italy, who are led by Michael Sheen - making the transition from the less po-faced Underworld franchise - and asks to be killed as he can't stand the idea of life without her.

New Moon is such a hodgepodge it's hard to be entirely sure, or care, about the mechanics of the plot, and at over two hours long it just becomes dull. The episodic structure doesn't work well. Meyer's books would have been better suited to a TV series, as Charlaine Harris's 'The Southern Vampire Mysteries' became the loosely comparable 'True Blood'.

It's a shame, as the first film, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, was promising. It's a double shame as the director here is Chris Weitz, who did such a good job with The Golden Compass, only to see that potential franchise sadly nipped in the bud. He does at least draw out some nice chemistry between Stewart and Lautner, which stands in odd contrast to the supposed profundity of the more stilted relationship between Bella and Edward.