Review of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) by James T — 17 Mar 2013

Saying Eclipse is the best film in the franchise so far isn't exactly high praise. When the entire series is seemingly going by the message that women need to marry young and cling to men because being an independent woman will only make you miserable, it's really hard not to hate a franchise. Seriously, that's the vibe you feel from these movies, every single one of them.

I can't speak for the books, but if girls out there think this is a faithful adaptation to the novels by Stephanie Meyer than something is horribly wrong in the world. It needs to be re-examined and re-habilitated.

A movie where good vampires team up with werewolves to take down a bad vampire army sounds like it should kick-ass by default, but unfortunately everything gets bogged down by it's uninteresting love story between the most shallow characters in cinematic history among other things such as boring dialogue and bad acting.

And this is the best of the series. The main reason is because most of the movie actually has a lot of conversation points were it suggests to Bella that maybe giving up her whole damn life to be with Edward isn't such a good idea. It's a lot more refreshing and it feels a little bold. But even with all that, Bella still doesn't seem to get it and decides that she can't be independent.

Now I'm not saying a strong relationship with a person is wrong, but when you have to give up everything, your family, your dreams, your soul, just to be with one guy (or girl) well then you're not right in the head. Sure, Romeo and Juliet is romantic, but if you really think about it, they were Stupid in love. A big emphasis on the word STUPID!

The movie does have some pros though. One is Taylor Lautner who deserves a much better acting gig than he is getting. Robert Pattinson isn't as bad as he normally is which is I guess a pro (not really), but the main thing that makes this movie feel legitimate is the pacing and cinematography is actually well put together. The movie is tolerable and doesn't cause any pain.

It has some moments of genuine entertainment, mostly in the flashbacks to some backstories of pretty decent and the action scenes are better put together, but that's mostly because of David Slade who had a better vampire run with "30 Days of Night". But even in the improved action scenes, it's hard not to roll your eyes every time a vampire goes down since they shatter like glass into little diamonds. Apparently the reason they sparkle is because they're actually made of diamonds. The vampire mythos continues to get abused more and more in this series.

Either way, there's a lot to hate about the series as a whole. But some improvements make this at least not god-awful. But if that's really the best you can say about the best movie in a film franchise, that's kind of sad.

But who knows maybe the final two installments turn it around. Maybe they will question the idea of sex before marriage in a very ambiguous way and also look into themes about death and women rights and independence. But I REALLY doubt it.