Review of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) by Chads. — 05 Jul 2010

The third installment of the "Twilight" saga is another total eclipse of the genre, the horror genre, which is dominated by male narratives. "Eclipse" has a feminine one. At least the vampires and wolves and the Joan Jett impersonator don't sing like the "monster" in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera".

At least "Twilight" isn't a musical...yet. So there's no need to bang on this franchise for not being Katherine Bigelow's "Near Dark", or Josh Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", until, that is, Bella and Edward perform a love duet sometime in the future on a Broadway stage.

After all, boys aren't the only one who need mythical heroes. If "Star Wars" was intended for girls, Darth Vader would have used "The Force" on Princess Leia, in a heartbeat, to lure her away from Luke Skywalker.

Love would become as important as conquering the galaxy to the foes, who are, of course, both related to the only readily available female for pro-creation as a preventive measure against the sort of scene in "Eclipse" where the interspecies lovers polarize the sexes in a violet field with their languorous talk about themselves.

If Leia wasn't his spawn, Vader would have definitely tried to f*** the princess, but he's locked into a male narrative which removes that possibility by default. While there's action in "Eclipse", it never gets in the way of the love that exists among this latter-day "Jules and Jim", who both pine for Catherine(played by Jeanne Morreau in the 1962 Francois Truffaut classic).

Edward and Jacob, who both pine for Bella, are in perfect position to bridge the desires of the moviegoing sexes when this precarious trio are caught in a snowstorm, where the vampire, because he's a raspberry popsicle, employs the wolfboy to warm up his shivery girlfriend.

If Jacob and Bella went all the way, it would, for all intents and purposes, precipitate a battle to the death, which is what the material cries out for. But the "Twilight" series is "Star Wars" for girls, and there are preventive measure in place to appease the core audience.

So they cuddle. Edward can handle abs.