The new installment in the "Twilight" movie franchise — "New Moon" — has opened, starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. The review-aggregation web site Rotten Tomatoes describes the consensus opinion this way: "The Twilight Saga's second installment may satisfy hardcore fans of the series, but outsiders are likely to be turned off by its slow pace, relentlessly downcast tone, and excessive length."

Interestingly, at least at this writing, the professional critics are actually being kinder to the movie than the general public: RT's "top critics" have the rating at 40 percent positive, while its overall measure is only 29 percent positive. It's often the reverse with big event movies. (And, of course, those numbers will change as new reviews are added.)

Russ Collins writes a bit about the movie in this week's "Cinema Chat" column, and here are a few other reviews:

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly Peter Travers, Rolling Stone Ty Burr, Boston Globe Michael O'Sullivan, The Washington Post Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune David Germain, The Associated Press Stephen Whitty, Newhouse News Service Jordan Mintzer, Variety

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