Movie Review: Eclipse

Before I get to the meat of this pain-filed horribleness extravaganza, I first want to give you the definition of the word Saga.

Saga (noun): A narrative of Legend or Heroic Exploits. Synonym: Epic.

I don’t know about you, but when I think about Legend and Heroic Exploits, the image that comes into my mind is something along the lines of this:

Not this:

And yet, thanks to the culture of today, a story about a bunch of super-hormonal emo kids has grown to a level of legend and mystique unseen since the Harry Potter series. With the dread legion of zealous fans (who possibly have access to their own private crusade/inquisition) the Twilight series has put on a big fancy hat and called itself a Saga. Personally, I consider this display of ridiculous Hubris to be an act of war, and will respond to such a thing accordingly.

“THIS… IS… FACEGUY!!!!!"

Eclipse, for those among you fortunate enough to escape the unholy legion of Twi-hards, is the third installment of the Twilight series. It wraps up one of the only remotely interesting plot-hooks of the series, that of a Vampire who wants to kill the main characters because of something that happened in the first film. Since then, she’s been causing a lot of trouble by running around really fast. At least, that’s all we can glean from what we’re shown of her “causing problems.” Seriously, if your villain’s special power is the ability to run away really fast, you don’t have much of a problem. However, she then makes an army of vampires with the purpose of finally doing the main characters in once and for all. Needless to say, she was the character whose motives I related to the most in the whole film.

Here’s the sad part about this film. If they had focused on the army of vampires, led by the revenge-fueled Victoria, fighting against a unified force of vampires and werewolves, this could have actually been a good film. It would have been a semi-ridiculous action flick, but it could have been fun and entertaining. Instead, the movie decides to focus elsewhere: on the most inane love story of the 21^st century.

One of the things that seriously disturbs me about Twilight is the message that it sends to girls. It basically says that having opinions is a bad thing, and that being free-spirited is basically heresy. In New Moon we saw Bella pining for MONTHS (not to mention acting suicidal) just because Edward, who she had been dating for less than a year, went away. In short, her life was meaningless due to lack of man. To me, this implies only one thing - Bella has the emotional and intellectual maturity of your average bean.

And when Edward is around, he’s an overbearing, controlling stalker who has no qualms about doing anything at all while justifying himself by saying it’s for Bella’s safety. There’s actually a word we have for that kind of behavior, and it does not even rhyme with “love”. When he gives her a diamond heart charm, I expected him to say that he made it himself by crushing a piece of coal with his overwhelming obsession. With the way Edward treats Bella, I find myself wondering if he has had any other girlfriends before, and what happened to them.

“Stop whining, it’s for your own good.”

But enough about my problems with the full series - this post is about Eclipse.

This movie was painful to watch. Eclipse falls apart right at the very beginning with Edward and Bella being in "love". We are faced with some hideous acting and some even worse writing. It seems a lot like the cast doesn't even want to be in the movie. I feel like I should feel sorry for these poor people, whose careers are so small that most of them aren't in anything else. Kristin Steward? Robert Pattinson? Dakota Fanni- wait, Dakota Fanning? That incredibly annoying little blond girl who was really popular a few years ago? That can't be right, the only really annoying little girl in this movie is a brunette.

This is the incredibly surprising part of Eclipse, and it's the sole redeeming quality of the film - the Volturi family. In a movie that shatters and ruins everything sacred and holy about both vampires and werewolves, the Volturi stand as a memory of the soulless, vicious, ruthless monsters that the undead should be. And the most terrifying and awesome of them all is played by Dakota Bloody Fanning (pun totally intended).

Absolutely terrifying.

I never thought I'd say this about her, but as far as sole redeeming qualities go, she's enough to make this movie was almost bearable, and actually watchable as long as she is on screen. The short time that we see her, she dominates the film, perfectly playing the role of the sadistic sociopath with terrifying powers over the mind. In a film full of whiny little emo-kids, she is cool, ruthless, and in short: A goddamned VAMPIRE.

Unfortunately, she's simply not around long enough to make this movie anything even approaching good. Even the "climactic" fight scenes tend to fall short of interesting, simply because you really couldn't care less about the outcome.

If you want my opinion (which I am assuming you are, seeing as you're reading my blog and all), avoid this movie. If you think you might enjoy it, wait for it to come out on DVD and get it through Netflix or something. It's not worth the money you'll pay to get into the theater - I could have just bought my blue raspberry icee and looked at the posters for 2 hours and felt like my time had been better spent.

Final Grade: D