The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

So much ado in the world mass media about "Eclipse"! And - much ado about nothing.

"Summit Entertainment", please call back either Catherine Hardwicke or at least Chris Weitz! The franchise is getting from bad to worse. You're in danger of losing millions of viewers for "Breaking Dawn" if the trend begun by David Slade continues! If you don't care about quality movies, care at least about your profits. "Eclipse" is a cheap hack-work whose only aim is to make some easy money. It won't work twice.

David Slade has done the impossible - he managed to butcher the "Eclipse" novel altogether! Instead of the most dynamic book of the saga, which – though possessing no literary qualities of big literature - is at least a page-turner, he produced an incredibly cheesy hash-dish of disconnected episodes, none of which is charged and coherent enough for the viewer to evaluate its meaning for the plot and character development. The film has no magic of Catherine Hardwicke's "Twilight" which concentrated on the phenomenon of first love with all shades of emotion, its tenderness and blunders. The colour gamut of "Twilight", the dialogues, the motivation of the characters, the pacing varying from slow to lightning speed – everything was there to contribute to the magic. Chris Weitz, on the other hand, concentrated on the character of Jacob and on the film gathering momentum in the very end, when Bella goes to Italy. This break from the slow pacing of the time tedious for Bella to break-neck speed of the Italian part does the film credit. Though in comparison with "Twilight", Chris Weitz almost botches up Edward's character to save it at the last moment in the episode with the Volturi, both films have an atmosphere of their own. Not so the "Eclipse".

Slade and Rosenberg seem to have been intensely hating the book while filming it. How otherwise could they have created this … this… product (euphemism)? No coherent and consistent dialogue, no dialogue meaningful enough to give the actors at least SOME room for displaying their acting skills, no character motivation, no chemistry between the characters. The flashbacks with Rosalie and Jasper held some promise, but no, David Slade was very consistent in destroying their appeal, too. Both the stories lack some essential parts absolutely necessary for understanding the characters. On the whole, all the actors have to mumble through some nonsense lines which have to pass for dialogue. ALL of them seem to be there just because the franchise must plod on. Edward's repeated bleating about Bella marrying him obviously gets even on his own nerves. Action? Don't make my cat laugh. If this tiny part of vampires' training and a tiny fragment of real fighting lacking any gusto can be called action, then I'll eat my hat. I bet people expected much more than that bit of morning exercise, waving hands and raising legs. The only credits in this field go to Jasper and Emmett.

Acting? Godawful. It seems the main characters are suffering from various diseases and need medication real quick.

Edward is hanging about with the facial expression of one having chronic dyspepsia. It seems that each and every Bella's appearance on the set is nauseating for him and he's manly fighting this emotion to conceal it. Motilium and sickness medications, quick! It's not a progress in acting, but a step back. Edward was best in "Twilight", in "New Moon" it was slow deterioration, now it's a catastrophe. Edward must be changing, but - so? Edward seems to be turning into a willing slave of Bella and effacing himself completely. It's obvious that, on the one hand, the actor was left with no choices of his own and with not much of a role to play, on the other hand, he's tired of the franchise whatever he may be saying in public (and anyone would be tired of this film 'very DIFFERENT from the previous two'). By the way, we should do Mr. Pattinson credit, for he's honest – he said that he feared nobody would come to see the film. He has definitely seen the pre-release copy. Next time I'll be more attentive to the messages he sends.

Bella. She's lost all the appeal of a young inexperienced girl caring for everybody, eager not to hurt, to bring together, a heart bleeding for everyone. Now we see an egoistic scheming wench not caring a fig about anybody, her only aim, as we learn in the end, was to sift through her motives and to make the RIGHT choice, and that's becoming a vampire, love is secondary here. Is she doing it for her shrink? Next time fetch your pocket calculator to draw up the balance, Bella. Bella's attempt to seduce Edward looks nauseating, so pre-planned it is. Where's love, where's sincerity, where's youthful impetuousness? Gone to the dogs. On the whole, judging by Bella's facial expression it's evident that the girl was dropped head down more than once in her infancy and now has difficulty comprehending what is being said around her. Acetazolamide may have helped, had it been taken earlier. Bella's also obviously a mouth-breather. Remove your adenoids, Bells. Before it's too late and you're too far gone.

Jacob. No progress in comparison with "New Moon", too few and too bad lines given, too little screen time.

Victoria. Rachelle Lefevre was voluptuous, lascivious, dangerous. Bryce Dallas Howard is emaciated, pitiful, heavily painted and timid. She can't touch Rachelle Lefevre. A very bad choice. The wig alone doesn't make the character. A bad mistake of "Summit".

Was there ANYTHING good? My thumbs up to Jasper, Alice, Emmett, Carlisle, Charlie, Riley (though Riley's part could have been made more dramatic and consistent, but not with the current wonder script, alas). Oh, yes, the landscapes were impressive.

It was predictable that they would make this movie, but it probably will not go down in horror film history as anything special because it is a fairly run of the mill horror film. It was watchable but not all that interesting to me. I think I have a good open mind for new film experiences but I think this saga is sort of pretentious. Like a copy of the Underworld saga but more easy on the eyes, it doesn't really add anything interesting to the genre of werewolf films or the genre of vampire films. Kind of a ho hum movie to me, oh well, there are other things to watch. One of the problems that I can see with this series is that they have to many young characters in an area that would not be so dominated by young people-as in the area of the occult. There would be visibly older people as much as there would be visibly younger people. Maybe it is like saying 'we were left out by you and now we are leaving you out' type of thing, in terms of the film being a reaction against so little acting work often being given to younger actors in general for serious parts. Maybe. It is sort of like a Peanuts cartoon where adults are portrayed as fuzzy indistinct nuisances.

Bella (Stewart) has a decision to make and things become complicated with the emergence of new Vampires who want to destroy the Cullens.

Well, here we are again. The last one in the Twilight Saga trilogy. Are we having fun yet? I suppose the answer to the question 'which way will Bella go' is uppermost on most inquiring minds.

So that was one plot, the other was the new Vampires and their plans to defeat the Cullens.

This was more like a soap opera (weren't they all?) and the only action this time we saw was the big battle in the open field between the New Vampires and the Cullens with help from the Wolves. The CGI was again terrific and the battle seemed very real. Hey, I cringed at times.

This was somewhat hard keeping up with the story line in the beginning because of the great length of time between this movie and the last one and I had forgotten what some of the other characters were involved with. But, no matter as I just concentrated on the Bella decision and I knew a battle would be waged between the New Vamps and the Cullens. That is all you really need to know.

There were some good lines in the beginning. Perhaps the best one was when in the Student Union the talk was about the upcoming graduation celebration. One girl said they should make it extremely good as "how often do we graduate from High School?' The camera then pans to Edward, who has that wry knowing smile on his lips. And, the Valedictorian speech at the graduation ceremony was perhaps one of the best I have ever heard. Very good. Too long to recount here.

This was okay and we now have closure. But, I cannot help thinking that every time I will see Robert Pattinson in future movies I will still think of him as a Vampire and will keep waiting for him to show off those Vampire powers. A long wait, I know. I have to get over it.

As for Ms Stewart, I have seen her in other movies where she actually showed more than two facial expressions. I have to give her more credit in here than I have in the past. To do this one has to believe in Vampires and Werewolves. Her character believes so for her this is a very serious situation and there really isn't much to smile about when you have Vampires and Werewolves running loose. See? Maybe a part of the problem is that many in the audience don't understand her plight. See? Give her a break.

All in all, this was okay. We are done with this now, aren't we?

Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: No.

It's been billed as the biggest film of the year and perhaps it will be, but it has some stiff competition from the likes of Harry Potter coming this winter, so let's see if Eclipse really deserves that prestigious title.

The vampire and werewolf love saga has been bitterly disappointing so far with a dull first instalment and a hideously depressing second. Add to this some excruciatingly painful running times of over two hours and you have death by celluloid.

But perhaps I'm being a little unfair; this third instalment has been based on perhaps the most exciting book of the four in the series so it already has a good starting point and some convincing performances from the actors really do make this film a huge leap ahead of what preceded it.

The storyline to this film is pretty much non-existent but director David Slade does a good job of turning zilch into another depressing, but well made two hour love fest. Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen), Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan) and Taylor Lautner (Jacob) return as the three main leads and their love triangle becomes even more confusing this time around, with frowning faces and awkward kisses galore. Add to this an army of newborn vampires ready to rip the very flesh of Bella Swan's bones and it's getting pretty tense down in Forks.

Sadly, even with a whole army of vampires and werewolves fighting in the finale, this small increase in action doesn't take away from the fact that the film drags in more than one place with blocks of dialogue that feel as if they're going to last a lifetime. It's unfortunate as the action pieces look excellent and the CGI, especially in the werewolves has improved leaps and bounds between New Moon and Eclipse. This shamefully vain dialogue with unnecessary close-ups of Robert Pattinson's face, Kristen Stewart's eyelashes and Taylor Lautner's chest are surely there just to appeal to the female fans and do nothing to progress the story.

It is these main three characters that hinder the film; their stilted dialogue and mediocre acting overshadow the rest of the cast who are all superb. Newcomer Bryce Dallas Howard playing red head vampire Victoria is seriously underused along with the whole Cullen flock who are not given enough room to breathe between the heavy central dialogue. Their acting is fantastic, why not use them more? Thankfully, it isn't all tears before bedtime with some well-timed comic humour from Bella's dad, Charlie. Played by Billy Burke, he is the only character of the used variety that leaps off the screen and he does so well, playing to his strengths as an actor.

Overall, Eclipse moves the game on but only very slowly. David Slade has crafted a beautifully shot movie with some excellent action pieces; but it still remains dull as ditch water because of bland performances from the lead cast and chunky dialogue. It's bound to please fans but biggest film of the year? I think we'll be seeing a certain boy wizard holding that honour for 2010.

I read up to the first 4 chapters in the original Twilight book before I sat it down and decided it was trash. My sisters said otherwise and I have taken them to Twilight and New Moon at the midnight premiers, so I held to the tradition and brought them to Eclipse.

Not having much faith in the movie as I had seen the first two and was not impressed at ALL, I got ready to take a nap. Instead after the first few boring scenes it kicked up (unlike in the other two) and we actually got more than 2 minutes of action.

The acting was better, but Bella and Edward both returned to their comatose state on screen while Jacob and the wolf tribe keep the life in the movie. I have to hand it to Rathbone for another good performance and wondered why he couldn't have played Edward, instead of listening to the wooden voice of Pattinson.

It had its good moments, ridiculous moments, points where the script sounded as if it were written for a nickelodeon kid's show, and scenes where you just want to scream at the characters. I would have liked to see Alice do more than just stand and have a premonition, and what happened with Esme? She was on screen for 10 seconds.

It was enjoyable, to say the least and probably the best of the series (so far). But then again, that's not saying very much. 5/10