Reviewed by

Les Scott

Well, it isn’t as bad as the last piece of crap released in the Twilight Saga is about the best I can say about this box office smash.

As you may remember, last year I had serious, heartfelt, if not a little harsh criticism of the fecal matter that was called a movie, titled "New Moon". I’m happy to report; 1) my daughter did not in fact shoot me for that criticism, and 2) this crap wasn’t as bad as the previous.

A basic synopsis is: Bella (Christen Stewart) is again in danger as Seattle (the nearest metropolitan area to Forks Washington where the story is centered), is frightened by a string of mysterious killings and disappearances. The cause of which we find out may in fact be a continuing vendetta of a vengeful vampire set on payback from the first book/movie. Amongst all the killing and the looming high school graduation which will mark the end of Bella’s "human" life as she is planning on be transformed into one of the immortals herself, she has to choose between her love for Edward (Robert Pattenson) and her friendship/ love with Jacob (Taylor Lautner).

While there is another fairly strong story line of the vampire rampage in Seattle, the story again mainly revolves around these three main characters. And once again it is mediocre acting overshadowing the film. Much of the rest of the cast has some good showings but as a whole, are largely underused. Some of the best acting comes from Billy Burke who plays Bella’s father Chief Charlie Swan who has some well-timed comedic moments. Humor aside, this film is far better than its predecessor, but that doesn’t say very much.

Overall, Eclipse wasn’t a bad movie. David Slade, the latest Director, has showed some talent with some excellent action pieces; but it is still slow with endless/ pointless dialogue .

Obviously the entire Twilight Saga was originally written as a teen love story, but each treatment has selected all the "romantic" crap to cram into each film, and as a result, the movies come off as soppish (not a real word but it fits, Soppy- British slang for excessively sentimental; so I say soppish).

As stated above, the action scenes were pretty decent. But as in the previous film I still can’t believe they can’t get some decent freaking CGI stuff! I don’t know if it’s a budget issue or the powers that be just think the acting talent will carry the flick, but I sincerely hope for the end of the story they improve on this.

I read one critique that said the movie was "a weak update on Romeo & Juliet aimed at generating teen female obsession". Yup, I’d say that’s accurate.

One of the first welcomed things I noticed was the appearance of comedy. Yes! It actually made the movie bearable to me. One of the funniest lines which was delivered quite well by Mr. Pattenson was; when the camera comes in to see Jacob (Taylor Lautner) once again as he is frequently shirtless, Edward (Pattenson) says "Does he own a shirt? At this point the whole theater rocked with laughter.

While the acting has not drastically improved, there was some ground gained here, the lines were still cheesy but it did appear as the actors were at least trying to do some credible work, but unfortunately when you only have the garbage that is given to you by screenwriter Melisa Rosenberg, you can’t really expect too much.

This movie again leaves me with the question, is it the poorly written script, the directing, or is it lack of good performances? Well this is the third go around for most of the actors. While there were some good performances the main three were lacking a bit, but as I said improving. The directing seems to be done by rent-a-director as each film has a new captain at the helm, but it’s the screen writing which has been consistently bad. By the same individual no less, hmm.

I know there is a bunch of people who love all three of the twilight saga movies. But having read the books and having watched the two previous movies, I believe this is the best so far. A movie is rarely going to be as good as the book, so if you are a huge fan of the books and that is what you're looking for, then you will have a letdown, although they did stay a lot closer to the original story line on this film. David Slade didn’t do a bad job, but he could have done much better.

As you might have surmised from my wanderings, even with armies of vampires and werewolves fighting; the increase in action doesn't take away from the fact that the film drags.

In parting, if you’re into Kristen Stewart (she’s cute), Robert Pattenson (He’s not) or Taylor Lautner (my daughter says he’s hot), then you may like this film.