Does "New Moon" movie measure up?

Opinions are mixed on the film version of Stephenie Meyer's "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" but readers of the book were uniformly surprised by the ending.

It all depends on whom you ask. If you're talking to the critics, a lot of them were pretty underwhelmed by "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," the movie version of the second book of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight teen vampire series. " 'New Moon' is boring and pretentious," declares the Associated Press.

According to the AP critique, the movie is comically bad, to the point that, "the soap-opera melodrama of Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner's performances provides some unintentional laughs."

But just try asking some fans (or "Twihards," as the most impassioned label themselves) and you'll hear a different story. "I just saw the Movie tonight and am in love with the movie and all the characters!!!!!" gushed one fan on the movie's MySpace page. "i already saw the movie like
4 times aww it made me cry," wailed another.

There may have been many fans making multiple trips to the cineplex. According to the AP,  the movie, a box-office record breaker, "sucked up $140.7 million in its first three days and pulled in a total of $258.8 million worldwide."

For truly die-hard fans who know and love "New Moon" as a book, however, there were some surprises. The movie's ending does not track that of the book. "I was really surprised by the ending, the way they kept us hanging like that," one fan told MTV News, after seeing a midnight screening in New York. "I hated it, but I liked it at the same time."

Many fans are choosing their words carefully in discussing the altered ending, trying to be careful not to spoil it for those who have not yet seen the movie. But they have been candid about admitting that it's not what they expected. When she saw the movie, another fan told MTV, the ending was "a big deal" for herself and the other Twihards surrounding her. "Everyone just screamed and was shocked that it ended."

Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor’s book editor. You can follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/MarjorieKehe.