BREAKING NEWS: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

I suppose someone on this site had to review Eclipse, the third installment in the Twilight Saga. So I guess that someone will be me. Before I launch into what I thought of the film though, I would like to mention on a personal note that this summer is quickly becoming my summer of vampire reading and watching. So far I have read and watched Interview with the Vampire and am looking forward to the rest of Anne Rice’s books, I’m on the last book of the Southern Vampire Mysteries (the Charlaine Harris series upon which HBO’s True Blood is based, which I intend to watch), just started in on Buffy the Vampire Slayer which I have never watched before, and am still looking for new material. So if you have any suggestions for vampire books or movies old or new, please post them so I can check them out!

All right, back to business. Let me refresh your memory: Bella Swan (Kristin Stewart) lives in Forks, WA and two boys are in love with her. One is Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a vampire, and the other is Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), a werewolf. Of course Edward and Jacob hate each other, both as a byproduct of their simultaneous vying for Bella’s affections which leads to intense jealousy and also the inherent species-versus-species hatred between vampires and werewolves. While Bella struggles between the two, especially after Edward pops the big marriage question, a vampire named Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) gears up an army of fleeing vampires in Seattle to bring to Forks to destroy Bella in order to avenge her mate.

Phew, that’s a lot! The trailers certainly seem action-packed and enthralling, don’t they? Well, looks can be deceiving, and that is certainly evident in Eclipse. Director David Slade (Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night) seems to try very hard to put his own personal stamp on the film, but it becomes clear quickly that there are two essential issues that stand in his way of making Twilight a credible filmic venture : the apparent lifelessness of Stephanie Myer’s material, and the doubly apparent lifelessness of the leading love triangle, especially Kristin Stewart.

Eclipse‘s plot goes full circle in the worst way; by the end of the movie we are right back where we started, still stuck in Forks with the same love triangle. Sure, maybe there’s a few less vamps hanging around, but none of the important ones died. And maybe Bella does agree to marry Edward (surprise surprise), but that doesn’t change the fact that she strings along both him and Jacob with her excruciating whining and manipulative ways right up to the very end and we’re still given no evidence that she intends to stop this behavior in the upcoming installment. Like I mentioned, the trailers certainly beef up the violence and fight scenes present in the movie, but don’t let them trick you into thinking that their presence gives the plot more incident.

Now to the essential reason this movie sucked: the acting. Taylor Lautner is the young, brash and hot-tempered werewolf; let’s face it, that’s not too challenging a role, yet he still manages to make it half-hearted. The only thing not half-assed about Lautner’s performance is his muscles, really, which are front and center whenever he’s on screen. Robert Pattinson’s role as the aged vampire trapped in a teenager’s body is more complicated I think. He’s supposed to be about a hundred years old, so why does he act like a constipated 16-year-old throughout the whole movie? And then there’s Kristin Stewart. It is my belief that any potential these movies had at being remotely good died the moment Kristin Stewart was cast. She is a joyless black hole devoid of all personality, and she sucks the life out of every scene she’s in. Sure that’s harsh, but it’s the truth.

I want to give Slade some credit: There are moments in the film that are humorous in a self-referential way, and it does poke fun at itself every once in a while (none such humor can be found in the previous two movies, though it is sorely missed). It’s amazing to me that he could go from Hard Candy to Eclipse, and I can tell he really was trying, but it just wasn’t enough and that’s how the cookie crumbles. Did I enjoy the movie? Sure, I did. But if you’re looking for quality, this is the wrong place to be searching.