The third outing in the Twilight series is entitled Eclipse.  This like the previous two installments features a screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg and stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, and Media Decay favorite Ashley Greene.  This time they’ve brought on another new director, David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night).

 

The plot is kinda simple but spoilery for anyone who hasn’t watched the other 2 movies.  So you might wanna stop reading if you don’t want to be spoiled at all, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.  Basically a vision reveals that a band of new vampires is headed to kill lead character Bella (Kristen Stewart) and her vampire boyfriend and his vampire family can’t protect her alone so they turn to the werewolves, one of whom has quite the crush on Bella, for some assistance.

 

 

Basically the entire movie is about 2 things: a leadup to a big battle and this girl with two guys who want her.  There’s many problems with this movie, but perhaps the most troubling is that it delivers on absolutely no levels.  The characters are crazily two dimensional, and those 2 things the movie is about, well let’s break them down.  First the girl who has 2 guys who want her.  She only wants one of them and isn’t interested at all in the other for anything but friendship.  It’s very clear cut and there’s not a single ounce of conflict, though they keep trying to tell us there is.  There’s a very confusing part at the end where she does express a feeling toward the guy but there’s no motivation behind it besides leading along some pre-teen girls.  It’s really one of the worst moments I’ve ever seen on screen.

 

Then there’s the big fight the entire 2 hour movie leads up to.  Yeah we don’t really see that.  Instead we stay with the girl in a tent with the two guys and ignore the whole fight.  We just join it after it’s mostly over and only see a few quick shots and nothing at all exciting.  As someone who isn’t even a huge fan of action, I really would have killed for a decent action scene in this movie as the whole fucking thing led to one.  Oh also you figure out who was behind the whole army in about 2 seconds if you have a single brain cell and it’s supposed to be a mystery or something.

 

The movie also refers to another choice.  Bella wants to become a vampire so she can be with her boyfriend forever.  But he doesn’t like that idea (also things he doesn’t like: sex with attractive girls) but she’s somehow made him promise to make her one and then some super vampires are making him do it too. Yeah it’s that nuts.  But the werewolf is trying to talk her out of it too, so basically if she were to choose him she’d be choosing to stay human.  But then all the vampires are basically telling her it’s not that great but she just won’t listen.  She’s so ignorant and obsessed over her boyfriend it’s sickening.  This entire movie is the antithesis of feminism.  Why does she have to even choose between these two guys?  Can’t she be happy by herself?  Also she’s just in high school, and not really that bright.

 

Anyway if you’re a fan of the series you probably have already seen this, if you weren’t a fan of the other movies or the books then avoid like the plague.

Tickets are available from Fandango via the link below.  Eclipse is currently in theaters.