The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) – 3/5

Not as entertaining as the previous two, but still good enough

„The Twilight Saga: Eclipse“ is an American English-language live action movie from 2010, so not super long anymore until this one has its 15th anniversary or maybe it happened already if it takes you a little longer to come here and read this review of mine. The title gives away that this film is of course another installment to the Twilight film franchise and here we have the third of five films or of you count the last two as one film, then it is the third of four, so we are indeed deep into the story here. I saw this a day ago and it was not the first time I watched this movie, so I have to be a bit careful with what I say here as I kinda expected certain plot inclusions from the following film(s) to take place here already, but then again I stated anyway that there may be spoilers, even if I am not sure if this also applies to upcoming films. I guess not. This one here is of course also based on the books by Stephenie Meyer and Melissa Rosenberg also returned as the screenplay writer here. Meyer is not credited differently than Rosenberg which makes me wonder if she also worked on the screenplay, but it is not too important anyway. If you have seen one or both of the previous film, you know what to expect here. The director is David Slade and if I am not mistaken, this was his first Twilight film. He had a few films before that already received solid recognition, but none with the appeal for such a gigantic amount of fans for a certain franchise. If at all, you could put Harry Potter in the same dimension, the series that was pretty much over already when Twilight began, even if HP got many spinoffs of course. Slade also worked on many music videos from fairly famous acts before his transition to full feature films.

As for the cast, nobody should be surprised that you will see all the familiar faces from the previous films. This includes Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner at the center of the story, but also Burke, Greene, Facinelli and others picking up their supporting characters again. Not too many new inclusions. Even Victoria is brought back and she was already a key antagonist in the first film. Christian Serratos was a (physically) nice new inclusion here, one of really not many, and her success with the undead here probably helped her as well to become a part of „The Walking Dead“ later on. If we look into the story, there are similar conflicts like in the previous film(s). Bella still wants to be turned, while Edward is not too fond of this and Jacob surely isn’t. Then there is also talk about getting married, but none of all this happens in this movie. In the end, it is really all about keeping Bella safe again and she even gets the wolves and vampires to briefly collaborate in this quest when an army of newborns as they are called here (vampires who were still humans not a long time ago) fueled by Victoria’s anger is about to attack our heroes. Her motivation is still losing her beloved one in the first film. I see Victoria got recast here. I did not even recognize while watching the film, but then again it has been a month since I watched the second film and in tis third film Bryce Dallas Howard plays the part and she became an Oscar nominee not much later, so again a female supporting player who got in at the Oscars a while before Stewart did. This is not meant in a derogatory fashion though. I like K-Stew. She has given quite a few strong performances in recent years and same can be said about Pattinson and also several of the (male) supporting players have been in projects over the years that got a much better recognition than this one here. There are not many poor actors in here to be honest, it is just the script that ruins them and that the best of the best could not even have turned into something positively special, even if here and there we do see moments in which the actors can turn the material into something nice. I think my favorite acting moment from this film here was a brief sort of monologue by Edward (Pattinson) already relatively close to the end. That was nice. The conversation between him and Lautner’s character there inside the tent or what it was with Bella seemingly sleeping was also not bad.

However, for every decent screenplay moment, you will find at least two, rather more, that were on the embarrassing side. The absolute lowlight this time was probably Stewart’s character rambling about being Switzerland, i.e. Being neutral with the two wild guys going up against one another. They also had their gimmicky moments. The audiences loved comments like Jacob saying he is the hotter guy, which was not only a reference to his body temperature or Edward wondering if Jacob has no shirts to wear. I mean he does show up topless a lot and his running is also a bit of a running gag now. Hehe I just had to. Or the dog smell, even if I found that funnier than most people in the crowd this time. I think many people there were my age or a bit younger, people who were still teenagers when Twilight was originally released, but already close to the age of 18. Which means that now they are 30 or slightly older already. Which also means that now they are at least as much going for Bella’s and Edward’s fathers as for Edward or Jacob. This became pretty obvious with the shouting and screaming while the film was going on. It was a packed room, easily triple-digit territory in terms of viewers and surely closer to 200 than to 100. I generally do not like really full movie theaters too much, but here it was quite an experience and I am glad I went. It brought back some nice memories and I was surely well-entertained. Definitely will go see the two final Twilight films as well then in early April when it is all going to end. Should be fun too and judging from how this film ended here the Volturi will be a bigger factor again. But today we talk about this one and here the Volturi (and not even their biggest leader) were mostly watching and deciding if they should intervene. It was a bit ridiculous though honestly to see them walk as part of such an influential group when they really did not look the part at all there. No offense to Dakota Fanning. She is alright, even if I usually prefer her sister.

Speaking of the supporting players, I definitely have to say a few more words about Billy Burke. He was also really entertaining again as the protective father here. It is basically the same like in the previous two films, but he always brings something new and entertaining to the table. His comments on his daughter still being a virgin and also on his daughter going on a trip to see her mother again were priceless. Bella’s mother was also included a bit more this time and that was alright, even if her words about how her daughter and Edward are like magnets were a bit cringeworthy honestly. What was definitely cringeworthy was once again the opening to the movie. Just like with the film before, not sure if both, we have a voice-over from Stewart’s character that really could not have been any more pretentious if we are honest. It was unbearable to watch almost, but it got you right in the spirit of this franchise again because these poetic words were really meant 100% seriously and fittingly we see Stewart’s character prepare for an English exam, but Edward rather wants to make out. So yeah, this means that she still took school seriously despite the idea of how she soon would be a vampire probably. Edward showed us also his sparkling there in the sun right at the very beginning and it was the only time during this film I think, but it made a handful viewers giggle and laugh too. Speaking of those vampires, the youngest addition to the family apparently has no more struggles to stay calm when he sees and smells Stewart’s character. I am talking Jackson Rathbone’s character here. Some girls in the crowd liked him too. He also got his own background story and we find out what happened to him a few centuries ago and how he became a vampire. We find out the same about a female character, one that Bella does not seem to get along with too well. Always nice to see the supporting characters get some more elaboration as well. Then again, they had to fill over two hours. This explains it. Rathbone is also the only one from the cast who won a Razzie that year for his performance, but I think it was rather for the other film that he was nominated for as well because he is not way worse than all the others in this film we have here.

Aside from the Razzies, Twilight was again a big factor at most awards shows for young audiences, even if maybe not as much as it had been before with the previous films. I can understand them a bit. The story was really nothing too new here anymore and a lot felt recycled from what happened before. The only fairly new aspect here is that Jacob got a plot where he was maybe even seen as more likable as Edward for once and the entire story about Bella not being ready to admit (to herself) that she has feelings for the werewolf boy as well was new too, but it was really not good to be honest. Okay, the moment when she punched him and almost broke her hand was funny somehow. Not gonna lie there. But the entire drama with the antagonists was just nothing special time which is one reason why I give this film a lower rating than the previous two movies. I was entertained here too, not gonna lie and there were quite a few moments that were just so weird and you could not look away, like when we see Victoria’s head on the ground, severed from her body. Oh well, at least now she is kinda reunited with her lost love again. Or when we see Edward and Jacob go up against each other. Or when we see Edward appear out of nowhere next to Bella inside the car. Or when we see Bella leave with Jacob on a bike and so on. She surely loves to make her men jealous here and there. Not gonna lie. This girl is no angel. This is it then. You see I liked this film, but did not love it. Still, it’s a thumbs-up.