Well as a big Twilight fan I have been waiting for this film for a long time, as soon as they released the date it was going to come out I was counting down the days in excitement! Last week, I had a crisis of when I was going to see this film, because all my friends were working, I'd been on placement so the anticipation was killing me.

~*~ Stats ~*~

Directed by - Bill Condon
Produced by - Wyck Godfrey, Karen Rosenfelt, Stephenie Meyer
Distributed by - Summit Entertainment
Running time - 117 minutes
Budget - 110 million dollars
Gross Revenue in 4 days - 283.5 million dollars
Release date - 17th November

~*~ Cast and Characters ~*~

Bella Swan - Kristen Stewart...
Edward Cullen - Robert Pattinson...
Jacob Black - Taylor Lautner...
Carlisle Cullen - Peter Facinelli...
Esme Cullen - Elizabeth Reaser...
Alice Cullen - Ashley Greene...
Emmett Cullen - Kellan Lutz...
Rosalie Hale - Nikki Reed...
Jasper Hale - Jackson Rathbone...
Charlie Swan - Billy Burke...
Renée Dwyer - Sarah Clarke...

~*~ Brief Plot ~*~

Well, Edward has asked Bella to marry him, Bella has said yes, so it can only lead to one thing? A wedding, watch the wedding and honeymoon unfold and see what terrible dramas and problems it can bring to the new Mr and Mrs Cullen. As everyone knows by now, it's never going to be plain sailing for the pair - especially with friends like Bella has, watch as Jacob comes along all brooding as usual, with his werewolf friends or enemies depends how you see it. If you've read the books then you know exactly how this film is going to play out, but if you haven't go watch it just to have a look.

~*~ Well, live up to expectations? ~*~

To be honest no, I am a huge fan of the entire saga, I have all the books and to be honest if you saw them - they are really well read. I've got all of the DVD's and well the first one has probably been played to death by now. So I went in expecting a lot, having read the book and knowing the plot, I knew I wasn't in for any huge surprises and if there were any, well they'd ruined the book. So I sat and eagerly awaited the film to start, after half hour of trailers it finally came on.

I want to say the acting had improved, but I'm not going to lie to you, Kristen Stewart is still as stiff as a board, looks like she's never cracked a smile in her life and seriously girl - for a character who is about to get everything she wants in life, take it from me she would be smiling a lot! In comparison to the way she is described in the book, the way Kristen has been directed is just not right. As the books go on she is meant to become a little less awkward, and get used to the way of life she so desperately wants but in this film she seems to have gone backwards - initially anyway, as the film goes on she gets a bit better, but then that is totally beside the point when you have to suffer an hour of awkward behaviour. Robert Pattinson, as normal is brilliant as Edward, as the dark and brooding vampire, but this time we get to see a development in him slightly as there is more lust in his character, rather than that love that we have just been seeing in the past three films - which is more how a teenage boy should be and we all know that. To be fair the amount we see the rest of the cast is pretty small considering how big a part they actually play in the book. Rosalie especially irritates me in the book, by trying to take over, but in the film she's just acting like the doting sister-in-law. I don't like the way they've been told to act the characters this time and it just irritated me, because it seemed so false. I know the film isn't real life, and I know there will always be an element of believability that isn't there - but this just pushed it to dire extremes. Only people I found didn't irritate the life out of me were Bella's 'friends' at the wedding, they were only in small parts this film - but well written and acted parts even if it was for as little as thirty seconds. Ok, so just in case you thought I had forgotten to mention Jacob, I haven't - I was slightly impressed at the way he acted this film, a little different to how I expected but it was in a good way, it doesn't make me like him anymore than I did but the character has developed to a point so that I don't want to hit him for his naivety when it comes to women.

Now the story itself, because I knew the book I knew where it was headed, and to be honest after the last film everyone knew where it was headed - so really it was natural progression. Which despite it being so, I'm not going to excuse how quickly it moved in the film - there were parts like some honeymoon scenes that could have been cut, to make for a bit more of the actual action. Even that was few and far between, the tension between the werewolves was high and I think that should have had a more prominent part of the film rather than some of the honeymoon scenes that were just repeated of the same thing that had happened twenty seconds earlier. They seemed to extend the laborious bits, and shorten the parts that would have made for quality viewing which is a shame, however there is a part of the film that every girl watching will understand, but it seemed so out of place in a bunch of films that are so deeply serious all the time. Yes it made the screen of people giggle, but it just didn't feel appropriate and you can tell that Kristen wasn't comfortable doing it which made it a little hard to watch. I sound like I'm complaining about the entire film, but to be honest if I'd made it, it would have been very different but Stephanie Meyer didn't ask me so what do I know!

One thing I will say costume wise - Bella's dress, was very nice simple, elegant and suited her very boyish figure, but again she looked so awkward in it that it became another laughable moment in the film. Edward looked good, right there whether he was clothed or not really, similarly with Jacob, but then that has no bearing on the film at all I don't think - oh who am I kidding who could ignore it. Made the almost sex scene a little more watchable, it was a subtle sex scene for a move that is apparently a 12 it was just about appropriate, the way it's described in the book little bit more vulgar but for the screen it was a good adaptation - because it was very obvious what they were doing without slapping you in the face with it. Now the settings in the film, were as breath-taking as ever, the Cullen house never fails to amaze me - it's beautiful and well I want it, always have done even though it's not quite how I imagined it. The setting to the wedding now I'm not sure exactly where it was but it looked like that damn meadow they spend so much time in, but in reality it looked beautiful and to be honest I'd happily get married somewhere like that providing it wasn't raining! The honeymoon ventured through Rio which was unexpected, but still was a bit of a distraction from the plot, and again Bella never cracked a smile, or if she did it was a tiny one. The honeymoon was spent on a gorgeous deserted island and well, the word wow springs to mind if someone were to whip me away to that I'd definitely have a bigger smile than she did.

Ok, so now the part that really wound me up was the special effects, without giving away what happens, it puts Bella in a bit of a situation where a lot of special effects and make up are required. Now at first the make up was good, and there was no need for CGI, as time went on CGI got a bit more involved, and if I'm honest that's when it started to lose the plot slightly. No one needs remind me it's not real - but if you are trying to persuade an audience that it is real, you are not going to do it this way. I was sat with my best friend in stitches inwardly cringing at how awful it looked, and just how unbelievable it was to anyone - I knew what was coming I just didn't expect it to be quite that in my face. Some parts of the book that you expected to be elaborated, were made out to be ridiculous and to be honest just made me want to walk out. I stuck it out though, to the end purely because I wanted to see where they would end the film - now that was a bit of a hot topic considering the film is ended half way through the book. I am actually impressed with how they chose to end the film, it's a credit to Stephanie I think more than anything else, but the few minutes leading up to it just were tedious - we all knew what was coming and well we need not have made it last so long!

I sound like I'm just whinging about the film, and to be honest I am a little bit - because it just didn't live up to my expectations at all, I expected something more realistic as hard as that was going to be - but not something that was laughable. Something with a bit more action, to get my teeth into (excuse the pun,) I just came out of the cinema really annoyed that I'd waited so long to see something that had so utterly disappointed me. I wish they'd spent more time on it than they had even though this film has been a long time coming, and really Summit the soundtrack, this is a Twilight film don't put Bruno Mars in it! Seriously, ruined the soundtrack completely - Twilight soundtracks are beautiful tunes, or something a bit heavier, than Mars warbling on about something no one is interested in. So far the weakest of the five films, I will see the next one purely just so I can say that it's better than this one, because with all the awkward things done it shouldn't rely so heavily on special effects that just make things look like they were made in the eighties. So thank you for making the book into a film so I can continue my collection, but please make sure the next one is better Summit! Please!