As you may recall from last year’s New Moon review, I’m not a big fan of the Twilight Saga or the whole Mormon vampire phenom in general. So if you’re looking for a subjective review, you’re probably not going to find it here. But considering this is probably the best Twilight outing of the series thus far, you might be surprised at how much I didn’t just outright loathe this film.
Before I get into the good bits of Eclipse, however, let me first reiterate why I firmly believe this series is destroying America—teenage girls in particular. First of all, it’s repeated several times that if Bella (Kristen Stewart) has sex with Edward (Robert Pattinson) that she will lose her soul. No joke. Second of all, Bella is begging for Edward to turn her into a vampire, meaning she will literally give up her life for this dude. Thirdly, Edward is downright obsessive with Bella. It freaks me out, and I’m probably a high maintenance lady. It’s creepy. So what messages are we sending to all the screaming girls out there? That they should look for an obsessive boyfriend who they should give up their entire lives for? But watch out, you wouldn’t want to lose your virtue by expressing your sexuality!
Anyhoo. Now that my feminist bitchfest is out of the way, onto the rest of the review where, as I mentioned already, I don’t completely bash the shit out of Eclipse!
Before I get into the good bits of Eclipse, however, let me first reiterate why I firmly believe this series is destroying America—teenage girls in particular. First of all, it’s repeated several times that if Bella (Kristen Stewart) has sex with Edward (Robert Pattinson) that she will lose her soul. No joke. Second of all, Bella is begging for Edward to turn her into a vampire, meaning she will literally give up her life for this dude. Thirdly, Edward is downright obsessive with Bella. It freaks me out, and I’m probably a high maintenance lady. It’s creepy. So what messages are we sending to all the screaming girls out there? That they should look for an obsessive boyfriend who they should give up their entire lives for? But watch out, you wouldn’t want to lose your virtue by expressing your sexuality!
Anyhoo. Now that my feminist bitchfest is out of the way, onto the rest of the review where, as I mentioned already, I don’t completely bash the shit out of Eclipse!
Eclipse greatly benefited from the addition of director David Slade (30 Days of Night, Hard Candy), who really lent a slight edge that the franchise was sorely needing. How can you have a movie about vampires when NO ONE gets bitten, let alone even bares their fangs?! This film starts of quickly with a brief vignette of a young man being attacked in Seattle. Of course, it transitions sharply to Bella and Edward canoodling in a field of flowers, trying to downplay the violence. But, really the violence in the film is what sets Eclipse apart from its predecessors.
Our good buddy Victoria (now played by Bryce Dallas Howard) is out for revenge on the Cullen clan, who killed her mate in the first film. She’s creating a huge army of newborn vamps to kill the Cullens and Edward’s beloved. Apparently newborns are more violent and bloodthirsty than older vamps. So the Cullens and the werewolves must set aside their rivalry to protect Bella and their community. See how much more exciting that sounds than New Moon, where Bella just fucking moped around for 2 hours?! Of course, peppered in the mix is the love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) and whether or not Bella decides to marry Edward in exchanged for being turned.
The thriller and action part of the film is really where Eclipse succeeds. Super strength vampires fighting CGI wolves is a heck of a lot more believable in this film than anything else. Seriously, the dialogue is stiff and wooden (think of George Lucas’s ridiculous “romantic” dialogue), the accents pop up out of nowhere, and the wigs and makeup are horrendous. This sounds like such a small pet peeve, but I was mesmerized by just HOW BAD Stewart’s wig was. And the caked on makeup for everyone was just an eyesore. It’s like this movie just tried to make normally attractive people look downright weird. And the romance is just hard to watch. It’s bad when a screening full of diehard fans giggle at cheesy professions of love.
I personally wished the battle between the newborns and the Cullens/werewolves could have lasted longer. It was the action scenes that finally lent the Twilight Saga a blockbuster feel that was sorely missing from a franchise of this magnitude.
--Darcie Duttweiler
Our good buddy Victoria (now played by Bryce Dallas Howard) is out for revenge on the Cullen clan, who killed her mate in the first film. She’s creating a huge army of newborn vamps to kill the Cullens and Edward’s beloved. Apparently newborns are more violent and bloodthirsty than older vamps. So the Cullens and the werewolves must set aside their rivalry to protect Bella and their community. See how much more exciting that sounds than New Moon, where Bella just fucking moped around for 2 hours?! Of course, peppered in the mix is the love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) and whether or not Bella decides to marry Edward in exchanged for being turned.
The thriller and action part of the film is really where Eclipse succeeds. Super strength vampires fighting CGI wolves is a heck of a lot more believable in this film than anything else. Seriously, the dialogue is stiff and wooden (think of George Lucas’s ridiculous “romantic” dialogue), the accents pop up out of nowhere, and the wigs and makeup are horrendous. This sounds like such a small pet peeve, but I was mesmerized by just HOW BAD Stewart’s wig was. And the caked on makeup for everyone was just an eyesore. It’s like this movie just tried to make normally attractive people look downright weird. And the romance is just hard to watch. It’s bad when a screening full of diehard fans giggle at cheesy professions of love.
I personally wished the battle between the newborns and the Cullens/werewolves could have lasted longer. It was the action scenes that finally lent the Twilight Saga a blockbuster feel that was sorely missing from a franchise of this magnitude.
--Darcie Duttweiler
RSS Feed
