Starting last Thursday at midnight, hundreds of people have been packing movie theaters to see the eagerly awaited premiere of “New Moon”, the second film to come of the “Twilight” saga. The theaters have been packed not just with adolescent and young adult girls impatient to see what will unfold between the romance of Bella and Edward, but also with male fans ready to see the action scenes, and perhaps meet a girl who thinks fans of vampires are hot too and get a date.

It’s hard to say which aspect of the film was better, the action scenes between shirtless vampires and werewolves, the romantic scenes between Bella and shirtless werewolves and vampires, or the shirtless heroes themselves. However, looking past the most popular heartthrobs from this year, the plot was well developed and had an even stronger story line than the first movie.

The characters interpretation of the roles was strong enough to have nearly all fans debate whether team Edward or team Jacob was the right choice for the damsel. While Edward’s dark personality and mystery has no doubt earned him another award for ‘most wanted guy in America’, it was the acting of Taylor Lautner as Jacob that was most amazing in this film.

Lautner worked hard throughout the film with his witty jokes, brilliant smile and physique that made every woman in the theater say “yum” the first time he took his shirt off to oh-so-sweetly dab Bella’s wound. Lautner is definitely an acting force to be reckoned with. His earthy nature and looks in the movie showed the character as warm and rugged rather than smooth and sophisticated. Lautner as Jacob made every girl in America ask themselves, “what could really be bad about dating a werewolf?”

Another great task Lautner accomplished was convincing everyone why Team Jacob even existed. Whether you’re for Bella and Edward or Bella and Jacob, this movie showed how hard Bella really toyed with his emotions and played up there “we’re almost there” moments very well.

The directors also improved many aspects of this film compared with the first one, especially when it came to the special effects. The action scene’s matrix type fighting and chasing were cause for a smooth and professional look and created many scenes that were nothing short of breathtaking.

The only aspect of story development which I wish would have been expanded a little more was the break up scene. The acting was very convincing and heartfelt, I believed Edward really wasn’t in love with her, and I knew the truth! However, the book went into a better detail of why Edward was actually leaving. The movie could have done this in a way as to not give away any of the mystery but keep the audience a bit more informed.

And speaking of story line, the movie did a great job of brushing over the sequences in the book where not much happened for a period of time. Clearly not every detail from the book can be shot on the big screen, unless they put out a six hour movie, which Twilight fans would probably love! However, directors made sure to include little details from the book to keep viewers in sync, such as Jasper’s mood changing powers, and etc.

“New Moon” did exactly what it set out to do: make everyone fall in love with Jacob, make every girl jealous of Bella, and show that Edward is still the hottest vampire anyone’s ever heard of. The cliffhanger ending has us all waiting impatiently for the third movie. Team Jacob round two?