At school lunchtime, a slightly happier Bella rejoins Jessica and her geeky emo friends. They discuss the recent local news that five hikers have gone missing; the general suspicion is that bears mauled them. Geeky, sensitive friend Mike calls up enough courage to ask Bella out to see a movie. Bella doesn't want to see a romantic film, as Mike suggested, but instead chooses Face Punch, a mindless action flick. She also invites all her friends to come along; don't look so sad Mike; it's a miracle she's still letting you come along!
As it turns out, only Jacob shows up to meet Mike and Bella at the theatre. They watch the action movie; some dialogue from it is heard: "Both of you put both of your guns down; I'm gonna blow both your frickin' heads off!" I actually enjoyed the humor even though I'd still rather watch whatever film they're watching. Mike and Jacob sit on either side of Bella, who notices that each of them have a hand open and available for her. Even this worn-out, mild bit of humor is a welcome relief from the dreariness dominating the rest of the film. I wish the rest of the movie would take place in this theatre.
Alas it's not to be: sissy Mike gets nauseous from the action on-screen and runs out to the restroom. Jacob and Bella follow and wait in the hallway while Mike throws up whatever he ate that day; I imagine it was crème brulee, some quiche, a Shirley Temple and birth control pills. While waiting, Jacob gently tries putting the mack on Bella, saying he'll never let her down or hurt her, unlike a certain pale, bird-chested sourpuss. He knows Bella just wants to be friends but declares "Well I've got loads of time; I'm not gonna give up!" Bella could've just left that alone but adds to the confusion by telling him "I don't want you to (give up)".
Mike returns from the restroom and says he needs to go home. Feeling embarrassed, he weakly tries to convince Jacob and Bella that he already felt sick before the movie and should probably visit a hospital. Jacob seems to suffer from a fit of 'roid rage as he aggressively gets in Mike's face, threatening to put him in a hospital himself. Bella calms Jacob down and notices his skin feels unusually hot. Jacob relaxes, collects himself and leaves. Don't worry about your jerky behavior and abnormal muscle development Jacob; Major League Baseball has a home for you!
Now comes another sad music montage, as it turns out that Jacob is now completely avoiding Bella. He supposedly is ill with mononucleosis but Bella gets suspicious after what seems like weeks. Eventually she drives over to Jacob's place and confronts him in the rain. Jacob now has a haircut and sports a tattoo. This prompts the suddenly dense Bella to ask "You cut your hair off... and got a tattoo?" He tells Bella to go away; she suspects Sam (the head of the shirtless Native American dudes) has gotten to Jacob. I don't really know what Bella has against Sam and the boys, it isn't like she's seen them do anything other than joke around and go cliff diving. Maybe she's suspicious because they have tans despite living in Washington State. Jacob asserts that Sam is actually helping him then tells her to blame the Cullens for her problems. He tells her to go home or she'll get hurt then heads into the woods with his buddies. What Jacob meant by all this vague stuff gets explained later but I think it would've been helpful at this time to give Bella some specifics.
Later Bella hikes through the forest while we hear her voiceover, telling us that "Without Jake I can't stand it". Wait, I thought you couldn't stand it without Edward? She needs to quit being so clingy! Get a healthy hobby girl, like watching films to pedantically complain about them! She walks into the meadow where she dreamed about Edward and her old aged self in the opening scene; of course now the meadow is just full of withering grass. Edward's chronic sobbing must have been good fertilizer, too bad he's gone!
She kneels down and looks a little queasy... I mean... looks even more queasy than she usually does. Suddenly grabbing her attention is Laurent, the dreadlocked, evil, urbane vampire from the first film. He tells Bella he didn't expect to find her there then reveals he came to see if Bella was still under the Cullen's protection. Do all vampires contradict themselves or just the ones in the Twilight saga? Laurent then says he's there to do Bella a favor by killing her quickly, as the ultra-evil vampire Victoria (also from the first film and now our main antagonist) plans on killing her very slowly and painfully.
Suddenly, some giant supernatural wolves spring out from the forest, cutting Laurent off from attacking Bella. They chase super-speedy Laurent into the forest; one of the wolves gives Bella a meaningful glance before joining the chase. Gee, I wonder who that wolf really is? She runs all the way home to her Dad, where she tattles on the giant wolves and hypothesizes that they're the creatures responsible for the presumed-dead hikers. Wow, some gratitude you show for the dudes who just saved your mopey ass, Bella! Dad, with assistant Harry, is naturally suspicious but the two of them grab rifles and head for the forest to investigate, while telling Bella to stay home. Even if nothing comes of his hike in the forest, at least this'll give Dad another welcome respite from his high-maintenance daughter.
Bella now has bad dreams about angry, evil Victoria, who in the first film swore to kill her as revenge against Edward for kacking her own hubby. At night, Jacob greets Bella and does some Jackie Chan-style hopping and leaping to climb through her second-floor window. She doesn't seem fazed by this one bit, even though she doesn't yet know that Jacob is one of the werewolves (oops, sorry for the shocking spoiler!). Jacob has come to say he can't get close to Bella because he has a secret. Given that statement, coupled with the fact he's always hanging around in the woods with shirtless guys, I'm surprised Bella didn't nod her head in acceptance of Jacob's homosexuality; of course, she isn't the most perceptive woman around either.
She offers to skip town with Jacob and get far away from the gloomy vagueness that he's suffering from. Jacob then utters a clunky line that must have been plagiarized from a freshman C-student: "It's not something I can just run away from Bella... but I would run away with you... if I could..." They hug in a totally platonic way then Jacob leaps out of her window and runs away. Bella actually notices his leap but overall still doesn't look terribly shocked by his athletic ability. She goes to sleep and dreams about her father laying unconscious with a werewolf standing over him. Edward is also there. Jeez, I wish for verisimilitude's sake, we'd see Bella have one goofy dream for a change; at this point I think her dreams are being shown just to remind us that Edward is still part of the movie.
The next day Bella, sensing trouble, I mean... sensing more trouble than usual, drives over and barges into Jacob's place. She finds him sleeping but his buddies are approaching outside. Bella runs outside and confronts the guys over trying to make Jacob un-warm and un-cuddly. She goes so far as to slap Sam the leader, which makes him angry enough to turn into a werewolf. Jacob, now awake from the cackling going on outside, runs out and transforms into a werewolf himself. The two guys/wolves tussle and break stuff in a nicely done action sequence (see, I can be complimentary too; I'm just not getting much practice). They roll off into the forest while the two younger buddies take Bella to their home where she meets Emily, the scarred but friendly fiancé of Sam the werewolf mentor. They all know about Bella's history with the Cullens and the young guys brag about how werewolves are faster and such. Jacob and Sam walk in and joke around, obviously having patched up their dispute. Sam says "sorry" to Bella and everything is hunky dory.
Bella and Jacob go for a walk near the ocean. Bella says, "So you're a werewolf"; YES BELLA! HE'S A WEREWOLF! Does it have to get printed in the newspapers for you to realize it? Jacob explains that a few lucky members of his Native American tribe possess the gene for it. He also reveals that they can sense vampires, due to the fact that their body temperature rises when one is around. She asks if he can stop being one, to which Jacob gets all defensive: "What, I'm not the right kinda monster for you?"
In response Bella brings up the missing hikers, who she thinks were killed by Jacob's friends. Jacob explains that vampires killed the hikers and that he and the guys are around to protect against them. He states that vampires are the only things that werewolves kill; well, in addition to shirt store profits. Also, the werewolves have a truce with the Cullen family though he doesn't go into detail about its terms. Bella brags on how indestructible vampires are but Jacob blows that off by recounting that they didn't have any trouble tearing Laurent a new asshole; we see a flashback of the werewolves doing just that.
He explains that his gang plans to take out Victoria next, in fact they've repeatedly chased her up to the Canadian border but she always returns. So what does that mean... vampires are okay but werewolves get turned away by the border police? The werewolves only have United States jurisdiction? Victoria keeps returning south for the lower hair dye taxes? I hope it all gets answered by the end. Jacob takes Bella home and assures her that she and her Dad will be safe from Victoria. Later... okay I think we've watched enough montages of Bella being sad and inner-voicing her melancholy over Edward. These pitiful montages are to this film what fights are to kung fu movies or songs are to a musical.
Charlie and Harry search for werewolves in the woods. Elsewhere, Jacob and the other werewolves look for Victoria. Harry spots a wolf print or some such on the ground but covers it up! I guess Native Americans were given the secret about werewolves to make up for getting shot at and having their land stolen by the whiteys. While all this stuff is going on, Bella has an epiphany, telling herself "I realize what I have to do to see him again", and then goes out for a drive. She has decided to try her hand at cliff diving, once again rationalizing that whenever she's taking a risk Edward will show up. Of course it's been established that such moments are nothing more than Bella's hallucinations but imaginary Ed is better than no Ed at all I guess. So, to make things perfectly clear: an evil vampire whose sole purpose in life is Bella's death is in the area, as are fidgety cops with rifles and hyper-impulsive werewolves. What better time to go out and pull some needless stunts? It's all about you, isn't it, Bella?
