Cut to the Cullen house that night. Edward is showing Bella a painting of the Volturi and explaining to her (and us) who they are. Short version: they’re the head vampires who enforce vampire laws. Which are, basically, that vampires have to keep themselves secret from humans. I don’t think there actually is a second vampire law. Vampire Rule #2: Refer to Vampire Rule #1.

He explains how anyone that reveals the existence of vampires to humans gets killed in the only way vampires can be killed: he gets his head ripped off by the Volturi leader. And I mean that literally; the guy actually gets torn apart, limb by limb. We knows this because the camera zooms in on the painting and the film segues into a dramatic re-enactment of what Edward describes, starring a bunch of mincing Lestat-wannabes.

“Okay, who wants a drumstick?”

Of course, this is all just random trivia, I’m sure. Edward’s just shooting the shit. I’m sure none of this will become important later in the movie.

Understandably, Bella doesn’t like to hear about this stuff, and asks him to cut it out. Edward just smirks at her uneasiness, even when she says she can’t bear the thought of anyone hurting him. To give her “comfort”, he offers up another of his charming lines.

Well gosh, thanks for letting her know, Ed. And I bet that line won’t be coming back to haunt us anytime in the next hour or so, either.

However, Bella reminds him of Victoria, the evil red-haired vampire from the first movie who’s sworn revenge on him for killing her man James. Edward’s not afraid of her either, but Bella says if he changed her into a vampire then she could protect him. Edward says she already protects him, by giving him a reason to stay alive. Argh! Movie, will you please stop it? You’re making me angry, movie, and I really advise against it.

Thankfully, Alice interrupts and takes them to the party. The Cullens have lit candles everywhere, and festooned the place with flowers.

Oh yeah, this party is gonna be a real rager.

Rosalie is there, sour as always, and the giving of presents ensues. The only thing worth noting is the present from Emmett, Rosalie’s burly boyfriend, which is a sound system he’s already installed in her truck. He starts to call the truck a “piece of crap”, but Bella says, “Don’t hate the truck.” Damn straight!

Incidentally, this scene was shot on Kristen Stewart’s actual 19th birthday. Heh.

The next present is equally notable, but only because Bella cuts herself on the wrapping paper. I hate paper cuts, man. One thing I will say for them, though, is that they usually don’t bleed much. Unlike this one, which promptly drips a nice red splash onto the carpet. Which then kicks off the central conflict driving this entire movie.

You read that right: the entire plot of this movie is set into motion by Bella getting a fucking paper cut.

“Oh man, this always happens when I drop one of my awards.”

Jasper sees the blood, loses control, and finally does what he’s probably been wanting to do for a while, i.e. leap clear across the room at Bella with his fangs bared. Well, with his teeth bared, at any rate. Vampires in this universe don’t have fangs.

To protect Bella, Edward promptly throws her into the nearest wall. Which is certainly an interesting way of protecting someone from harm.

“Only this concussion can save you!”

Edward then punts Jasper into a piano. Which is actually the same piano he used to serenade Bella in Twilight. Oh, how the good things pass away.

“Yeah! This party’s off the chain! Let’s do some shots, bitches!”

Alice starts to calm Jasper down, but Edward’s protective body slam has left Bella with an enormous gash down her arm, which is now bleeding like crazy. So Alice starts to lose control too. Carlisle, the “father” of the Cullen clan, quickly orders everyone out as he goes to help Bella. Edward makes a face like thunder, and stalks off. Yup, looks like we’re back to the good old days of Sullen Cullen (OMGs, I just made that up!!).

In Carlisle’s creepily decorated office, the good doctor takes the glass out of Bella’s arm and stitches her up. She asks how he manages to keep himself under control, and he explains that unlike Jasper, he’s had a lot of practise. And also, he’s not a total douche.

Carlisle, who is actually a real sweetheart in this movie, talks about how he decided to be a non-human-eating vampire because he didn’t want his soul to be damned. As in, burning in hell for all eternity.

Bella tells him there’s no way a nice guy like him could ever be damned to hell. Carlisle thanks her for being so “gracious” about the whole vampire thing, although personally I think it’s more like blindly idiotic indifference on her part.

But Bella, grasping hold of the relevant details for a change, figures out that Edward won’t vampify her because he doesn’t want her soul to be damned to hell forever. Carlisle asks her if she would take Edward’s soul if she were in his position, and he makes a good point, but Bella obviously couldn’t care less. She wants to be vampified, now!

Bella and Edward drive back to her place in the famous Truck. When they arrive, there’s a typical Twilight-style “brooding conversation in a car” scene. Bella, ever the manipulative one, points out that if Edward doesn’t turn her into a vampire, sooner or later she’ll die. Edward still resists, so Bella resorts to whining that he won’t want her when she’s an old lady.

Edward obviously finds this as childish as I do. He irritably points out that she’s underestimating his feelings by assuming he cares about looks. As if! I mean, obviously Bella has so many other things going for her besides her looks! Like, um…

Bella tells him she doesn’t give a crap about her immortal soul, and she just wants him to get with the biting already. Edward, seeing that she won’t listen to reason, tells her to get going. She gets out of the truck, and asks for a birthday present from him. Not a vampire bite, surprisingly enough, but a nice, presumably very cold, kiss.

Edward complies, albeit with an agonised expression on his face, and I swear he actually winces and makes pained sounds when he kisses her. What the hell?

Back in her room, Bella prints off the photos she took and broods over a picture of Edward, and then sticks it in her scrapbook. Cue another music montage, but this time it’s set to another boring pop song. What happened to the cool songs from last time? This is not fair!

Buy a… oh, I see you already have one. Never mind.

In the montage, Bella is back at school, and sees the Cullen table in the lunchroom is empty. I have no clue where everybody went, but we cut to Edward in Bella’s bedroom, checking out the photo of himself with her. And it appears they cut the part where he steals all her pictures of him, in order to erase himself from her life completely, like the big creep he is.

Bella comes home, and Edward leads her out into the woods—the same woods where he once confessed to being a vampire. There, he tells her that “we” have to leave Forks, meaning the Cullens. He claims it’s because they’ve been there too long, and people have started noticing that Carlisle isn’t aging, and the Botox explanation is no longer cutting it.

Bella immediately assumes that she’ll be going with them, but the answer is no. Edward’s going, and she’s staying.

She tries to assure him that the whole thing with Jasper and the paper cut is no big deal, but Edward is all torn up about it, and more or less tells her that he’s breaking up with her. She starts getting frantic, but he resorts to getting all mean and hurtful by saying he doesn’t want her, and she’s not good for him, et cetera.

Yeah, those aren’t loaded lines at all.

Having broken her poor little teenage heart, he promises she’ll never see him again, and vanishes into the woods.

Left alone, Bella tries to go after him, but he’s gone. She persists anyway, freaking out, and eventually gets lost. Night falls while she blunders around like a moron, and she eventually keels over. And it’s not like she tripped or collapsed; it’s more like she was standing there and randomly decided to fall on her face.

She curls up on the ground and has a good cry while the camera spins around her, and she presumably falls asleep. There’s a shot of something big and barely visible in the dark woods with glowing eyes, and then we cut to Bella being carried comatose in the arms of some shirtless guy whose face we don’t see.

Back at her house, Charlie has called up the entire police force, along with a bunch of guys from the reservation. They’re organising a search for Bella, even though she couldn’t have been gone for more than a few hours.

Jacob is here, and he points out a shirtless guy emerging from the woods with Bella in his arms. The guy turns out to be one of Jacob’s friends, and he is indeed shirtless. You can expect shirtlessness to be a recurring theme for the rest of the movie, by the way. In fact, I think “shirtlessness” is now officially a word, thanks to this movie.

Charlie runs over and takes Bella back, looking understandably perturbed. Shirtless Guy then gives Jacob a meaningful look.

“Don’t worry, it’s cool, I’m just a half naked dude carrying your unconscious daughter around in the woods at night.”

The next day arrives, and here it comes…

Yes, it’s the montage everyone was anticipating after the infamous “blank pages” section in the novel. In the book, after Edward leaves, the pages just go blank. The names of the passing months are printed on three of the pages, but other than that it’s just blank paper, indicating that nothing happened for three entire months after Edward left.

There was much speculation about how the movie would handle this bit, and the obvious answer was with a montage, so here we go.

Bella sits in her room with her knees up and stares blankly out the window, while the word “October” appears. She watches people celebrating Halloween outside, and the camera circles around her and into a “November” caption.

An annoying, depressing pop song plays, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, we get a voiceover from Bella, now being even whinier and more self-pitying than before. She addresses Alice, whom she’s been apparently emailing during the montage, albeit without getting out of her chair.

What she actually says isn’t important; insert angsty 13-year-old girl diary entries here and you’ll be fine. But yes, she does quote the line from the book about having a huge hole punched through her chest. Much eyerolling from the audience follows.

“December” passes as well, and we see her typing out her words into an email, moping on the couch, and finally screaming in bed in the middle of the night.

Yes, Bella is now outright screaming and thrashing around like she’s doing the withdrawal scene from Trainspotting. Geez, I guess that “you’re my heroin” line from Twilight wasn’t a joke, after all.

We also see poor old Charlie on the couch downstairs, being kept awake by all this carry-on.

Bella writes more whiny emails, despite the fact that they all come back as undelivered. Yes, she’s been sending hundreds of emails, even though none of them are actually getting through, because she’s just that insane.

“Wow, I don’t know who Mailer Daemon is, but the guy is really into me!”

Not surprisingly, when we reach the end of the montage we get a scene with Charlie finally putting his foot down. He’s had enough of Bella being a nutcase, and he wants to ship her back to her mother. He also says her behaviour ain’t normal and it’s scaring him, so there’s at least one person in this movie with some common sense.

Bella refuses, and pretends that she’s organised a nice, normal shopping trip with her friend Jessica. You know, one of the friends she barely speaks to. Charlie buys it, and in an amusing moment, we get a voiceover of Bella hastily organising a shopping trip with Jessica.

And so, thankfully, we not only get to leave the Montage of Doom behind, but we also get another scene with the always-enjoyable Jessica. And thankfully, she’s just as fun to watch as she was last time around.

She and Bella walk along a city street, while Jessica complains about how boring zombie movies are. Bella isn’t listening, of course, which is a shame because it’s a funny monologue.

“I mean, who in the hell wants to watch a bunch of pale undead guys, anyway? Right, Bella?”

Bella perks up, however, when she overhears some guys calling out to her. They’re bikers sitting outside a bar called—no joke—”One Eyed Pete’s”. They’re being all sleazy and asking her if she wants a ride, which causes her to flash back to the guys from Twilight who wanted to ride her.

Ah, but you see, for Bella, almost being gang raped is a happy memory, because it involved Edward coming to rescue her!

And then, hilariously, Edward’s disembodied head appears, floating in front of her. So, apparently Edward has now become a Force ghost.

“Yeah, things are cool. Me and Obi-Wan, we’ve been hanging out.”

Hallucination Edward advises her to stay away from the biker bar, even though you think the fact that it’s called “One Eyed Pete’s” would be warning enough. Bella is creeped out momentarily, but then she decides to head on over to the bar anyway, mumbling to Jessica that she knows those guys.

As she gets closer, Edward appears again, telling her to turn back. Bella almost does turn back, but changes her mind and approaches one of the bikers. The guy looks pretty pleased with himself, and offers her a ride, prompting another Edward hallucination, but Bella hops on the back of his bike anyway.

And you just know this is the first time this guy’s sleazeball act has ever actually worked, and he’ll be trying this same approach from now until he’s 80 in hopes it’ll pay off again.

“So, you go for the older brother type, I take it?”

The biker speeds off, with Bella on the seat behind him. She sees Ghost-Edward on the road in front of them, and for some reason, this makes her scream at the guy to stop. Surprisingly enough, the guy actually does stop, and lets her get off the bike. So I guess he wasn’t that bad of a guy after all. Actually, I’m assuming he’s just the latest in the long line of nice guys getting jerked around by Bella in these movies.