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In this second installment of of the wildly popular Twilight book series, Bella (Kristen Stewart), the romantically tortured lover of vampires, must wrestle with the pain of a broken heart, as her vampire boyfriend Edward (Robert Pattinson) leaves the sleepy town of Forks. In an effort to fill the void in her heart, Bella rekindles a childhood friendship with Jacob (Taylor Lautner), a native of the enigmatic Quileute tribe. Before long Bella discovers that Jacob and his friends are actually werewolves with a knack for killing vampires. Now with an impossible love triangle set, tension builds to the point of suicide for both Bella and Edward, but not before Jacob saves Bella and Bella saves Edward. Meanwhile, how will vampire royalty, the Volturi, take to all of this teenage brooding and how will the Quileute tribe take to a growing threat of vampires near their land? Noticeably better than the first installment, New Moon makes significant steps forward to help the franchise in production quality; however, the script still suffers from anemia and for a majority of the film lacks substance to keep things truly interesting. Furthermore the acting of the ensemble seems hit and miss; in particular, sorry team Jacob, but Lautner’s uninspired performance is almost laughable at times, but then again, his muscles were quite soft core porn impressive– I can still hear the echoes of the ladies in the audience shrieking in my ears. Clearly this will be the winner at the box office this weekend regardless of good press or bad, but in reality this is more of a rental, or maybe a matinee if you’re really pining for shirtless young men with amazing pecks…I’ll pass thank you. The Twilight Saga: New Moon is rated PG-13.