The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Director: Chris Weitz
Stars: Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart
Classification: STC
Rating: ***

No matter how this review of New Moon ends, whether this critic loves or loathes the film, is irrelevant. If you’re one of the legion of “Twi-Hards,” you’ll be stepping on heads to see it this weekend anyway.

Nevertheless, Chris Weitz’s eagerly anticipated follow-up to Catherine Hardwicke’s blockbuster vampire epic Twilight isn’t half bad: It’s a faithful, swoony, sweaty palmed teen-centric fantasy circus that knows exactly what its fervent fanbase demands and delivers those goods by the coffin load.

New Moon (based on the same named novel by series founder Stephenie Meyer) picks up shortly after the dramatic events of Twilight left off, with mortal high-school misfit Bella (Kristen Stewart) going steady with hunky vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) — dangers be damned.

But when a cut finger awakens the bloodlust in the Cullen clan, Edward flees, leaving his human muse to the affections of über-buff werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) resulting in more heartache and PG-level horror.

New Moon isn’t Shakespeare by any stretch (though Romeo and Juliet does figure rather heavy handedly into the narrative) but it is commendably hardcore in its single-minded drive to please its mostly female audience.

It’s positively filled to the bursting point with doe-eyed romance, heavy petting, dreamy dialogue and shirtless werewolves (at the screening I attended, a chorus of young women sighed in unison every time Lautner doffed his duds, which was often).

But even if a supernatural soap opera isn’t your thing, New Moon contains some dazzling imagery and action sequences that are simply beautiful to behold. An extended set piece involving Bella, her vampiric nemesis Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre), and a heroic werewolf is driven by the hypnotic rhythm of Radiohead; its fluid CGI trickery and mild ferocity absolutely spellbinding in their design.

Same goes for the pulpy climax, where real deal actors Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon) and Dakota Fanning (War of the Worlds) embody designer evil as the leaders of the dreaded Volturi.

If New Moon has any real flaws, they’re certainly no fault of the filmmakers. Meyer’s novel was ultimately a bridge, the mid chapter of a quartet that serves to set up the sting of Eclipse (the film version of which is currently in post-production) and the climax of Breaking Dawn. But New Moon is effective and it not only honours its source, it also does what the first film couldn’t quite achieve: It etches out an identity of its own.