USA Today's review
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/rev ... ight_N.htm best matches my opinion of the movie. I was disappointed. It was way too condensed to adequately get a feel for the intensity of the love between Bella and Edward. Most of the time, Bella (Stewart) looked anguished or scared, not in love. I can remember very few times when she actually SMILED. I feel like the added parts (e.g., with Victoria/James/Laurent killing people in the town) unnecessarily took up time that could have (and should have) been used to pace out the movie and show a better progression of the relationship between Bella and Edward. I feel like if I hadn't already read the saga (twice), I would have never grasped their feelings for each other... It just felt too choppy and random to me -- as if they just put the major scenes together without worrying about the glue that held those pieces together.
I read a lot that the screenwriter was trying to change the dialogue so it wouldn't seem as corny, but I definitely thought it ended up being even cornier than had they just left it alone. And Edward's lines didn't do him justice -- in no way did it portray him as the strong, mature, old-soul gentleman that he is. He seemed more like an insecure, pushy, nervous... teenager! You gotta keep in mind -- he is 100 years old! He may look 17, but in reality, emotionally and mentally, he is very intelligent, experienced and confident. When Bella is in the forest telling him her observations of him and says something about how he speaks like he's from another time, I laughed (in fact, most of the theater laughed throughout the movie during parts we all knew were horrible compared to the book), because there was hardly anything in his dialogue throughout the movie to actually support that. In the book, he definitely does speak very much like he's from the turn of the century, but in the movie he didn't at all. Most of the things he said were one-liner-esque, rather than his normal flowery speech.
Had they not messed with Stephenie Meyer's progression and dialogue so much, I feel like it would have been much better. They had certain major scenes in there, sorta, but most of them hardly resembled the original scene in the book. The special effects were somewhat corny, but that's to be expected in a low budget film. I desperately hope that they increase the budget for New Moon and get a new director.
On the positive, the soundtrack was woven in very well, the actors all LOOKED very good (though their acting didn't necessarily impress -- except for Charlie (Billy Burke), who was excellent) and there were a few changed scenes that I thought were cute (the Cullen's cooking for Bella, Edward trying to dance with Bella in his room to Claire de Lune). But, in general, I felt like the only thing that stayed true to the book was the basic plotline -- the way the story was told didn't hold a candle to the way Meyer wrote it. It's like they were calling it the same dish because it had the same ingredients, but it had a completely different flavor.
I reeeeally wanted to like it, and I tried to go in with as low of expectations as I could, because I knew it would never live up to the book. But even overlooking the poor scripting/adaptation, the acting was corny and the progression was just way too fast and piece-y for me.
::Sigh:: Maybe I'd like it a little better if I saw it again and just tried to enjoy it for what it is, rather than comparing it to the book...