A whole year minus one day after Twilight came out, New Moon, the second movie in the Twilight Saga hit the theaters. The Twilight series is most popular with girls around my age, and the line to see New Moon was out of the theater at Lincoln Square Cinemas.

I’m happy to say the New Moon film was much better than the first Twilight film. The Twilight series is about a girl named Bella who falls in love with a vampire named Edward Cullen, and is pulled into his dangerous world. In New Moon, Bella discovers that vampires aren’t the only monsters out there when she learns about the pack of werewolves that is reportedly terrorizing the forests of her home town, Forks.

What really made a difference in making New Moon better was the major improvements of the cast’s acting. Kristen Stewart, playing Bella Swan, was especially better. I thought Taylor Lautner’s acting was the best overall and he had worked so hard to secure his role as Jacob that he had gotten very connected with his character. Even Robert Pattinson’s acting improved, although he didn’t have a very big part in New Moon and had to strangely mumble most of his lines to hide his British accent. Some of the lines were still a bit corny, but only as much as they were in the book.

Another thing that made New Moon a lot better than Twilight was it’s improvement of pacing. In Twilight, there were many slow and awkward moments in the movie, but in New Moon the new director, Chris Weitz, addressed this problem by stepping up the speed of the movie, although there was still a couple slow parts.

Watching the movie in the theater was great because I loved experiencing it with other people and hear their opinions. The best part was the constant squealing whenever Jacob came on screen. It was really fun to see all the audience reactions because everyone there was so excited!

Many people, including myself, who considered themselves “Team Edward” when reading the books are more “Team Jacob” during the movie. I think this is because Taylor Lautner’s great portrayal of Jacob Black makes him more likable to his fans.

The special effects weren’t amazing. But I don’t think anyone who came to see New Moon came for the special effects, so they weren’t focused on or hugely important to the film. The werewolves only looked sort of realistic, although there were a couple interesting fight scenes.

Even though most people consider New Moon as the most tragic part of the saga, the film did have quit a few humorous parts and laugh-out-loud scenes to go along with the sad ones. Most of the humor came from Bella’s new best friend, Jacob, who took on the daunting mission of making Bella feel better after Edward left her.

Mainly, New Moon sets up for my personal favorite book in Twilight, Eclipse, which I hope will be even better than New Moon. The movie is so much easier to understand if you’ve already read the books, but if you are a Twilight fan you will definitely enjoy the second installment of the vampire versus werewolf love story.