After reviewing New Moon, I promised to only do a review of Eclipse if I thought it was better than New Moon. So to my surprise, here I am writing this review. Yes, it was better than New Moon, but that is not to say that I liked the movie. The Twilight series is like the flu, the more you have it, the more immune you get to it. Maybe I have gotten so use to it, it just didn't bother me as much. However, there was plenty to complain about, so let me get the complaining started.
After the movie opened by showing us how Riley became a vampire, it quickly went to Edward and Bella in a meadow. Now where have I seen that before? Hmm, oh yea, New Moon started off with Bella in the same meadow! The difference was that this time it was not a dream. Are you kidding me, they couldn't start off somewhere different this time. To make matters worse, they ended the movie in the same damn meadow. Come on now; was that town so boring that the only place to hang out was a meadow? It was Edward and Bella's special place. Whatever, I challenge the next movie to start off somewhere else. Ugh, they had to show Edward sparkle in the meadow too. Don’t get me started on the sparkling again!
Not long after that, we got to see ANOTHER scene of Victoria getting chased by vampires, and wolves. Seriously, how many times do we have to see someone chase that woman? No one ever catches her, and you know that they aren't anyway no matter how close they make it seem. They just love showing that slow motion speed running (looks as dumb as that sounded) the vampires do. Then Emmett got a little too eager to catch her (because he didn’t get the memo that said NO ONE will catch her), and jumped over to the wolves’ territory. Oh, another reminder that the vampires, and wolves don’t like each other. They must think their audience pays so much attention to Edward and Jacob that they can’t remember the vampires and wolves hate each other. Some of us get the point!
In Twilight, Edward got to spend more of the movie with Bella than Jacob, and the roles reversed in New Moon. So how would it play out this time? Well, it turned into a nauseating ping-pong match. First she’s with Edward, then Jacob, back to Edward, back to Jacob, back and forth. Am I making you dizzy yet? That was nothing compared to having to watch that go on and on. Now you know why I watch horror movies. Bella loves Edward, but doesn’t want to hurt Jacob’s feelings. Jacob continued to pitch her reasons why he was better for her than Edward. Even if he had a great PowerPoint presentation, he still wouldn’t be able to convince her. He came close after scoring his first real kiss with her, but it still wasn’t happening. Thanks for coming Jacob, but Bella will be marrying Edward, and becoming a vampire. Your parting gift was having half your body paralyzed, and having your ego wounded.
Seriously, the whole movie boiled down to the continuous dramatic scenes of either Bella talking with Edward, or Jacob. Time after time, there were dramatic conversations all over the places, whether it was about whom she loved, or why she wanted to become a vampire. It was like they couldn’t help themselves. “I want to be a vampire.” “No, you shouldn’t become a vampire.” “I love Edward, and I love you too Jacob, but not in that way.” Don’t go with Jacob.” “You lied, I’m going with Jacob.” Man, if I really had my Predator bodyguard with me, I would have told him to take my head as a trophy right there. Instead, I was reduced to pulling out some of my hair. And then each conversation included that dramatic pause to drag the scene out even longer. Why???
As if those scenes weren’t awkward enough, there was one scene where Jacob, Edward, and Bella were all in a tent at the top of a freezing cold mountain. Because Edward did such a good job of picking the location, Jacob cuddled up with Bella in order to keep her from freezing to death. Instead of the dramatic conversation between Bella and Team Edward or Team Jacob, the two-team captains got a chance to talk about Bella as she slept. And what a strange conversation it was. As a guy, I couldn’t imagine really having that type of conversation with another guy unless maybe I was drunk. They were talking about what would happen if she chose the other team, and why she wanted to be a vampire. I think I liked it better when they hated the other team. Actually, instead of this weird conversation, I say they just have a fight to the death, and Bella marries the winner. I hope a show like Saturday Night Live makes fun of that scene. I don’t even want to get into how ridiculous Jacob looked carrying Bella up the mountain time after time. Just turn into a wolf, and someone find Bella a saddle!
After all my ranting, you may be wondering why I said I liked this movie better than the previous one. Well, that is because I am still wondering the same thing. Just kidding, there were a few things that were better than the previous movie. For one, the acting was better. I am not saying they are great actors, but they did do a better job. Maybe I was fooled because I have gotten use to them in their roles, or it could be that it took 3 movies to master their roles. As I said before, the dramatic conversations were nauseating, but at least the acting was better. Also, after the numerous times they focused on Jacob’s abs in New Moon, they actually chose to take normal shots of him this time. The first time that he was shirtless was the only time they really made a point of them. Yea, he was shirtless most of the time, but they let Taylor act and not be about how hard he worked out.
While I am not a big fan of their continued use of slow motion in every action scene, I thought they were shot a little better. At least they tried to be more creative in the action, and actually showed some fighting. That was probably why I liked this movie more. For those of you that have been reading my thoughts on True Blood, which can be found on the Horror on TV page, (shameless plug), you know that I have called for an epic vampire-werewolf battle. Well, there wasn’t anything epic about this fight, but it wasn’t a total waste of a fight either. It was entertaining enough for a movie that wasn’t about the fighting. The only thing that didn’t make much sense was how easy the Cullens and the wolves beat the young vampires after all the talk about how powerful they were. All we saw were the young vampires getting torn to pieces. I know the Cullens actually practiced for the fight, but did they really have to defeat the young vampires so easily? Oh yea, and why did the wolves just sit there, and watch them practice like they were the practice squad scrubs?
One last thing I will give the movie credit for, and that was giving some other characters a chance to be seen, and heard. For the few that haven’t read the books (mostly us guys), they gave us the back-stories to some characters such as, Jasper, and Nikki. It was nice to see how they became vampires. It gave their characters some importance rather than just being another vampire. Also, it was good to give us a break from Bella, Edward, and Jacob. The best back-story was the one of how the wolves came to be. I guess nothing beats a good old Indian story by the campfire.
For all the guys out there that had to see the movie, I am sorry you had to go through that. If it is in the cards for the future, don’t worry, I survived and so will you. I heard if you take the ghost from Paranormal Activity with you, it would increase your survival rate. There was plenty to complain about, but just remember that this movie was written for the fans of the books. The rest of us outsiders will never understand why, at midnight, there was a line from one end of the mall to the other to see this movie. And yes, there are going to be two more of these movies so don’t even think we have heard the end of this madness. After New Moon scored 0 pools of blood, I will give this movie a huge break, and give it 1 pool of blood.
HorrO
Check out my: New Moon Review
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