Dir. David Slade, USA , 124mins, 2010
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anna Kendrick
Review by Matthew Rodgers
Buoyed by the rather enjoyable soap-opera antics of New Moon, that itself built upon the Buffy-lite success of the first adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally successful vampire literature, Eclipse was approached with something akin to anticipation. Hardly surprising when the man at the helm had the stylistically grimy 30 Days of Night and paedophile revenge flick Hard Candy on his CV. Could this be the coming-of-age for the Twilight Saga?
Sadly, no. What Eclipse turns out to be is a narratively stagnant slice of teen tedium that features some of the most repulsive, self-centred, and just plain dumb characters ever committed to the big screen. And before the Twi-Hards revolt, please remember that this reviewer has thus far embraced a franchise for which he falls seriously far from the key demographic.
Not much has happened since we last spent time with our pasty pairing of Edward Cullen (Pattinson) and Bella Swan (Stewart). We find them sitting in a field musing over the benefits of marriage. She wants to jump his bones, he being of a more ancient etiquette would rather wait until they are betrothed and Bella has become a vampire. While they monotonously continue this discussion for the entirety of the movie, a new-born vampire uprising is growing in nearby Seattle with the intention of bringing war to Bella’s doorstep. Who is behind all this? The mysterious Volturi? Or is it the wronged red-head vamp, Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard)? And then there’s Jacob (Lautner), pining over his unrequited love but still convinced that Bella really loves him and his ridiculous six-pack. While sounding simply Shakespearean on paper, the truth is that this is an achingly dull thud of a movie.
The root of the problem is our main player’s motivations. Edward has gone from enigmatic outsider to a sulky, selfish, and obsessive boyfriend. Pattinson plays him with all of the grunting range we’ve come to expect from this seemingly limited hunk. Jacob is no better. His incessant insistence that Bella will be his is laughable. Lautner similarly struggles with the few lines of dialogue he is asked to repeat with an ever increasing frown. Why Bella would be torn between these two idiots is a mystery, but then her back-and-forth between wolfman and toothy is entirely selfish and devalues her as an empathic lead.
Maybe they don’t translate very well from the page, which might be why Bella’s desire to be turned into a vampire doesn’t ring true. She claims that she doesn’t fit in and that’s she always been an outsider, but the movie’s narrative has never really depicted this, even from the first film. She has a loving mother and father, and doesn’t have trouble making friends (one of whom is Oscar nominated Anna Kendrick � why waste the best thing about the movies by giving her two scenes?), so giving up all this for a possessive hundred year old just comes across as her version of smoking behind the shed or playing truant from school. Like much of the rest of this film it carries no weight.
There are though moments of mirth to be had. On numerous occasions Eclipse winks at itself, such as Charlie breaking up the bickering beasts and asking them to �take it down a notch�; my thoughts exactly. And Edward asking whether Jacob actually owns a shirt is a particular hoot. But then when the same script asks you to take a homoerotic cliff-top heart to heart seriously amidst the unintentional sniggers, and the oft-mentioned �war� boils down to a final reel game of kiss-chase in a field, Eclipse is shown up for the tonal and total mess that it is.
