The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Maybe it just took me a little longer than most. I'm not always the swiftest on the uptake. Maybe it took me until now to realize that I'm not going to get what I want out of the Twilight franchise. Vampires, werewolves, teen melodrama, all ideas that are firmly in my wheelhouse. Yet Twilight so far has endulged too much in the latter, and not enough of the former. I want big monster battles, vampires and were-dudes clawing and biting eachother with impunity. That's just not what it's about, and I've come to accept it. What Eclipse did finally give me for the first time is a reason to care about Bella(Kristen Stewart) and the odd love triangle she finds herself in with the cold vampire Edward(Robert Pattinson), and the oiled up abs of Jacob Black(Taylor Lautner).

Graduation looms on the horizon for Bella, and with it the uncertainty of her relationship with Edward. He wants to marry her. She wants to get laid, then turned into a vamp. This being Twilight, they aren't hopping into the marital bed anytime soon. Besides, she's still got some leftover feelings for furry hunk, Jacob, who never lets an opportunity to go shirtless pass him by. Edward and Jacob spend a good chunk of time staring daggers at eachother.When not eyeballing eachother, they're cracking jokes at the other's expense. Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg seems to have no problem taking a few jabs at some of Twilight's sillier elements. When poor Bella, forced to camp out in freezing temperatureswith Jacob and Edward watching over her, Jacob offers to warm her up because "I'm hotter than you". And Team Jacob swooned.

It's a familiar setup, only the stakes have been raised with time running out for the indecisive Bella. Edward still doesn't want to turn her into a soulless monster like him. Jacob's persistence in wooing her reaches stalker levels, made creepier by his forever near naked state. I'm still wondering where his jean shorts go when he transforms? Into the same imaginary subspace pocket the Hulk's clothes go, I guess?

The Cullen Clan is forced to work alongside their hated enemies, the Werewolves, in order to protect Bella. Victoria(Bryce Dallas Howard) is back, and this time she's leading an army of powerful newborn vampires in order to get revenge for the death of her lover. This leads to a series of flashbacks amongst the Cullens, providing a much needed origin and depth to the sorely underdeveloped family of vamps. One of my biggest gripes is that I had no real reason to like any of them. They just sortof hung out in their house and looked pale for 2 1/2 hours every year. The standout is Jasper Hale, the frenzied, somewhat crazy member of the clan, who is revealed to have been a Confederate officer in the Civil War. I'll ignore the fact that Jasper develops a southern twang and deep booming bass to his voice from seemingly out of thin air.

The secretive Vulturi take on a larger, more sinister purpose here led by that paragon of evil, Dakota Fanning. They show up basically to set up whatever it is that they're hatching for the next film, and to remind us that they exist. I had totally forgotten.

Kristen Stewart still seems too good for the material presented here. Her peformances have always been a little underplayed, which fits Bella perfectly, who never seems to get riled up over anything unless she's between her two boy toys. She manages to raise the level of Rosenberg's easy script. I still can't say the same for Robert Pattinson, who continues to make even the undead seem completely dead by comparison. He's just never quite on the same page as everybody else around him. Taylor Lautner is quite the opposite, as he steals pretty much every scene not by flexing his pecs but by showing more natural charisma than I ever gave him credit for. Darnit, I guess that makes me Team Jacob, doesn't it? I sure as heck can't figure out why Bella would ever choose Edward. Like, oh my god!

From the boring direction of Catherine Hardwicke, to the hap-hazard pacing of Chris Weitz in New Moon, David Slade is the first director to nail the film's tone absolutely right. He cuts out much of the timewasting melodramatic moments of the first two films, allowing the characters to show their emotions with actions rather than with long diatribes. In fact, the one time scene that really dragged was a painfully bad sequence where Edward awkwardly expresses his love. These scenes are few and far between.

Once the crap really hits the fan, the action flies pretty quickly. The special effects are nothing to write home about. Despite all the creatures and the gloomy setting, Twilight isn't meant to be a visual juggernaut. There's one major fight sequence, and of course it's cool to see werewolves battling against vampires. The wolves themselves don't always look quite right when in action, but when they slow down they're pretty impressive. I was disappointed in the length of the fight itself, and that for such a build-up to this being a great war, the outcome never was in doubt  for a second.

I feel pretty safe in saying that none of these Twilight movies are going to be masterpieces. But they don't really have to be, do they? For someone who has never so much as cracked open one of Stephanie Meyers's novels or knows what in the sam hill a Vulturi is, Twilight is probably pretty confusing. These are movies made solely for the fans, and those fans love them with a passion that I've never seen before. Eclipse is the first time I can count myself as one of those fans. A reluctant one, but a fan nonetheless. This is the best of the series by far, and hopefully the beginning of a trend.