The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

As Eclipse opens, self-centered teenage girl Bella (Kristen Stewart) is trying to convince her vampire boyfriend Edward (Robert Pattinson) to not only marry her, but also make her a vampire as well. It doesn't sound like the wisest of decisions, but you can't deny that Bella is single-minded in her determination. It's all she seems to think about. Edward's not too hot on the idea. It's not the marrying part that bothers him - he's not a commitment phobic. He's just not turned on by the idea of the girl he loves turning into a blood-sucking immortal like him.

These are the kind of romantic dilemmas that one can only find in Twilight, a franchise that has thrilled teen girls and many of their mothers with its gloomy gothic love story, where nobody seems to be able to express their love in a tone above a monotone whisper. I found the first movie pretty bad, but unintentionally funny at times. I found the second movie, New Moon, to be downright torturous, and I still hold it as a cinematic benchmark as one of the worst times I had at the theater this past decade. Now here's the third installment, and I must admit, I didn't hate it. Oh sure, it's just as cornball and sappy as the earlier ones, but this one feels a little tighter and not so sluggish in its pacing. Is it because of new director David Slade (30 Days of Night)? Is it because this movie focuses slightly less on endless monologues where characters express hollow emotions that sound like they were ripped straight from a grocery store romance novel? It's probably a little of both.

So, Bella wants Edward to make her a vampire as soon as she graduates from high school. Edward encourages her to spend some time with family, since she won't be able to be around them if she does go through with it. She visits her mom in Florida, and even spends some quality time with her father (Billy Burke), who seems a bit more on the ball in this movie. This is the guy who didn't seem to notice that his daughter had left for Italy at a moment's notice in the last film, remember. This time, he at least questions and sometimes seems uncomfortable over his daughter's obsession with the boy she's dating. The other vampires in Edward's family also try to talk Bella out of the decision. They share their individual stories of their last days as humans, and some of the flashbacks are kind of entertaining. But, Bella's mind is made up. There's a complication, of course. Her friend, Jacob the werewolf (Taylor Lautner), is still hanging around. He still loves Bella, even though she hurt him at the end of the last film. He also still prefers to walk around with his shirt off as often as possible, as do the rest of his werewolf brothers when they are in human form. (Not surprisingly, the sole female member of the werewolf clan is required to wear a tank top at all times.)

Jacob is against Bella's decision to leave humanity behind, and I must admit, he makes a lot of good points. For a guy who walks around without a shirt in the middle of a snowstorm, he has some common sense. He reminds Bella that if she chose him over Edward, she wouldn't have to change to be with him. She wouldn't have to leave everything and everyone behind. She also wouldn't gain an uncontrollable blood lust, as we learn that newborn vampires are particularly ferocious and hard to control for the first few months. This is the kind of stuff that make the girls in the audience swoon out loud. These two men who are sensitive, strong, and have big pouty lips are pulling Bella in two directions. Although she never quite leaves Edward's side, she does briefly consider some of Jacob's fairly reasonable points as to why maybe being a vampire isn't exactly the best plan to follow after high school. I guess it's hard to say no to a guy with perfect abs who is willing to carry you in his arms through the forest in order to protect you.

While the love triangle plays out, there's sinister things going on. One of the villains from the first movie, Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard), is seeking revenge by building an army of vampires. They're making their way to Bella's home town, and a war is about to start brewing that will force the local vampire and werewolf clans to clash against Victoria and her army in a large field that seems like it was built for just such a climactic encounter. CG werewolves lunge, vampires leap at each other with fierce determination, and there's a lot of bloodless decapitations, so the movie can hold onto that precious PG-13-rating. Parents need not be concerned about the violence depicted. It's all pretty cheesy looking, and accomplished with low rate special effects. Even with all this battle and death, there's still plenty of time for the movie to cut away to Bella and Edward, standing on a snow-topped mountain, making longing glances at one another.

Reader, I'm not denying that this is all hokum, because it's the very definition of it. The romance at the center of it all is still unconvincing, and the performances by Stewart, Pattinson, and Lautner are still more wooden than they should be. Although, to be fair, they do try to show more emotion here than in the past. But Eclipse has a sense of pacing that the previous films lacked. It also has a little more self-aware wit to its dialogue. None of this can lift the heavy-handed nature of it all, but it does make it a little more bearable than the past. The plot still moves slower than it should, but at least it actually seems to be moving. There are still some moments where I felt lost. There's a little girl in the evil vampire army that the camera kept on cutting to, like she was supposed to be important, but the movie fails to clue us in on just why. I guess that's for fans of the books to know, and me to never find out.

The audience at my screening gasped with each plot reveal, swooned at each shot of Lautner's perfect body, and made audible sounds of shock and awe when Edward finished a particularly romantic speech to Bella. I was less enthused, but then, this movie is not made for me. It knows its audience, it speaks to them, and it does its job. At least it has the decency to do its job in a slightly more tolerable way than the past. Sometimes when you're watching a movie you have no interest in, you have to grasp onto the little things.

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