I've read all the books in this Twilight series and tried to temper my excitement for this movie. Its basically a movie made for teenage girls and their romance loving mothers. It was made by a small movie studio with a tiny budget by modern day standards. There was only so good that the movie could really be. It definitely didn't help that with the book series being finished and dying to see the end game portion of it play out on screen, you now have to watch the beginning of it all and deal with the dragging parts that you forgot about. That all being said - the movie met pretty much all of my expectations dead on. It was watchable but definitely dragged at parts. The acting was pretty dull and reading the book was definitely a necessary prerequisite to being able to enjoy the movie. I definitely think that the following movies will be a 1000 times better than this one, but taking this movie for what it really is and NOT the blockbuster that it was advertised as being makes it a better than average watch.
I'd recommend this movie to people who read the book. Then again, would anyone who read the book not see this movie? If you haven't read the book - try to see it with someone who has so they can point things out as it goes on and you aren't stuck wondering what all the hype was about.