Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Twilight Saga: Eclipse

It’s hardly worth mentioning the ridiculous hype for this movie because it’s almost as if society accepts the Twilight films as something we just have to deal with. That is of course excluding the millions of fans who counted down the seconds until the midnight release. But this, the third in the series, has enough variety for die-hards, casual viewers, and those that were dragged to the theater kicking and screaming.

This time around Edward (Robert Pattinson), and Bella (Kristen Stewart) must deal with the threat of a newborn vampire army wreaking havoc nearby. As if that wasn’t enough, Bella wants to “do it” with Edward but Edward wants to get married first… it’s quite dramatic, well at least the vampire fighting part is. Professional vampire director David Slade (30 days of Night) takes the reigns this time and is successful in presenting quality action scenes that push the film in the direction of more traditional vampire lore. Some scenes would even fit in Slade’s 30 Days. I view this as a positive to the film, however I wouldn’t be surprised if some mothers of pre-teens weren’t pleased. But that should be the least of their worries.

In between the scenes of solid vampire violence there are drawn out and flat exchanges between Edward and Bella. I feel like everything these two insipid losers say is a repeated exchange from five minutes earlier or an earlier film. Then when the script channels the campy one-liners from the novel (yes I read it) I either laugh out loud or cringe in discomfort. So, what is the solution to this problem? I have no answer, but I know that throwing Taylor Lautner’s portrayal of Jacob in between the two just makes my laughter turn into hysterics. The whole thing is just so cheesy. A lack of acting ability sure doesn’t help either. Kristen Stewart actually has improved in that department but Pattinson straddles that line between tolerable and abysmal and Lautner has devolved to the terrible performance he had in the first Twilight film.

The increase in usage of the supporting characters didn’t strengthen the film as I expected. It merely brought into question the relevance of their being there at all. Billy Burke’s portrayal as Charlie Swan is one of the few exceptions to this. He provided some comic relief that was actually intentional, unlike the awkwardness of the three leads. Bryce Dallas Howard was also a nice improvement replacing Rachelle Lefevre as the villain, Victoria.

While keeping in mind the substantial flaws just mentioned, I must admit that there were lengthy segments that were very well done, and cinematically speaking the film looked very good. Improvements have been made since the first film in regard to special effects and how to translate certain moments to screen (i.e how the vampires die, their super speed). Now it’s just a matter of adapting the romance so that the teenage girls will still love it and everyone else won’t barf all over themselves. (7 out of 10)

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