The premise in this fresh adventure is fairly simple.  The nasty Victoria (Howard) is looking to avenge the death of her lover (who met an untimely end in the original movie).  She’s put together an army of vampires led by newcomer Riley (played by Australian Xavier Samuel).  They’re out to destroy Edward’s (Pattinson) life by killing his own true love, Bella (Stewart).

On your normal weekday, vampires and werewolves are worst enemies.  Not so here.  They reluctantly unite in a concerted effort to protect Bella from her would be attackers.  They are also concerned about their own welfare.  If these evil vampires continue their killing spree, the world will soon become aware of their existence.

These were the more interesting elements to the story.  Once again, I felt let down by the film’s romantic side.  It occurred to me late in the piece that I just didn’t care about Edward, Bella and to a lesser extent, Jacob (Lautner).  It’s a cute love triangle but the way they all speak to each other is so dreary and tiring.  They lack passion.  There’s no spontaneity.  I just wanted to see them have fun – to make me believe they had feelings for each other.

We’ve got another new director this time with Englishman David Slade (30 Days Of Night, Hard Candy) stepping into the hot seat.  I wouldn’t say there’s a noticeable difference from the previous films but I did like his action climax.  It’s not drawn out and it’s easy to follow what’s going on.

The stage is now set for the fourth and final film.  Hang on.  It turns out that that Stephenie Meyer’s last novel is going to be broken up into two movies.  It seems Summit Entertainment has borrowed the idea from Warner Brothers and the Harry Potter series.  I can’t blame them.  There’s profit to be made… and a zillion teenage girls around the world will be lining up to hand over their pocket money from tomorrow morning.