The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Review

The third instalment in the Twilight series crash lands in cinemas to the delight of many and the weary dismay of others. Once again, human Bella (Stewart) and vampire Edward (Pattinson)’s romance is under threat, this time in the form of an ‘army of newborns’: humans recently transformed into vampires and thus especially vicious. They have been sent by Victoria (Howard), the nasty lady vampire from the first film who is seeking revenge for her own lover’s death. On top of all that, Bella and Edward must contend with werewolf Jacob (Lautner and his abs) and his own feelings for our spoilt for choice heroine.

Like the Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises, Twilight inspires devotion in its fans. Unlike those other franchises, however, Twilight also seems to inspire much undue derision as well. While I would hardly describe myself as a fan, I feel it’s difficult to understand why the series picks up so much flak. Critics deride the poor literary value of the source novels, though they are no worse than the Potter books in terms of the quality of the writing. Others suggest the series offers a warped and damaging portrayal of feminism: at least a dialogue about gender politics is opened in Twilight, which is more than can be said for the franchises named above. A third criticism of the films is the supposedly poor dialogue. This is far less evident in this third installment and hey, we all know George Lucas can’t write dialogue for all the Republic Credits in the Outer Rim. Finally, there are those that say the Twilight pictures are just bad films. This is patently not true. The films are professionally and admirably put together and none more so than this latest release, helmed by the excellent David Slade.

So now that my rant in defence is over, what’s The Twilight Saga: Eclipse actually like? Well for starters it is both much funnier (often due to Billy Burke’s role as Bella’s dad and Jacob and Edward’s sparring) and has much more action in it than its predecessors, making it all the more accessible and exciting for non-fans such as myself. The young leads are all very good and their acting talents are noticeably growing from film to film. Robert Pattinson is especially good and demonstrates a charismatic and dominating screen presence. The special effects are improved and the cinematography is also rather stunning at times. The Lost-like flashback sequences detailing the origins of a number of the characters are also good and I hope there will be more of these to come in future instalments.

There are bad points however: I was left confused at several points and was forced to ask who people were and what they were referring to on more than one occasion, which isn’t great considering I have seen the other two films. This film also makes less good use of incidental music that its predecessor employed so well and Bella’s flitting between her two suitors did annoy somewhat towards the end. Finally, I was left wanting more from many of the characters. Like Toy Story 3, many of the background characters are more interesting than the leads but there simply isn’t enough time to give everyone a decent chunk of screen time. Also Michael Sheen isn’t in this film, but then you could say that about all too many movies in general.

So to sum up: if you’re fan, you’re going to love it. If you’re not, you probably won’t. However, for those willing to dabble with the series, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is a fun introduction.

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