Anything I say about this movie is irrelevant.  Anything any of the major critics out there say is irrelevant.  People are going to see this movie, die hard fans and those they love they drag to it.  And it’s not bad.  I liked it, and I don’t think that makes me any less of a man.  Plus I was with Chatty Kathy, so it’s all good.

Bella, Edward, and Jacob, the three sides of the human-vampire-shapeshifter love triangle (and who tend to give human-vampire-shapeshifter love triangles a bad name), are back for their third go at boffo box office bucks in Eclipse.  I’m not sure why it’s called Eclipse, I may have missed that explanation somewhere (it may be in the subtext), but I think it should have been called Vampire Vs. Shapeshifter Smackdown.  Or Seattle Battle Royale.  It doesn’t take place in Seattle, I know this, but Seattle and Battle together sounds kind of good.

Victoria, the red-haired vampire, is out for Bella’s blood because Edward killed her dear James way back in the first movie.  Victoria is in Seattle raising an army of newborn vampires to invade the drizzly, almost always overcast town of Forks, home of Bella, the Cullens, and the Native American shapeshifters.  This is a big deal because vampires are never more dangerous than when they are newly turned; they’re stronger, hungrier, and just much, much, more vicious.  They be crazy dangerous, yo!  And somehow the Volturi figure into it, watching Victoria raise her army; they want Bella dead, too, or something, or at least Jane does.  With Victoria looming over them, the vampires and the shapeshifters form an uneasy alliance to protect Bella and the town from the newborns.

As if that weren’t enough, the romantic troubles continue.  Bella is in love with Edward, but she has some feelings for wolf-boy Jacob that she doesn’t really want to admit to; Jacob is in love with her, and can’t comprehend why Bella doesn’t understand he’s better for her than Edward.  Edward loves Bella, but doesn’t want to grant her wish of turning her into a vampire, but will because she wants him to turn her; he wants to marry her, and refuses any hanky panky, thinking only of her safety, and her virtue (he’s from a different time, and that’s how things were done, though Bella just wants to get it on).

Yeah, I know, there seems to be a lot going on here, but not really.  If there is one thing I wasn’t expecting from a supernatural romance story, it was the promotion of abstinence.  Go figure.  The movie is really about two things:  the love triangle, and the vampire invasion.  After the build up and the wait, the vampire vs. wolves battle is welcome, though the excitement is short lived and a marginal success.  Makes me wonder how Bella and Edward’s honeymoon will be?


Director David Slade feels more at home here than New Moon‘s Chris Weitz.  Is this a better movie?  I think it’s on the same level as its predecessor; I wasn’t any more entertained by this one than the last one.  But entertained I was, and that’s all I want a movie to do.  The movie has a certain charm, and a certain excitement.  They may be unexplainable, but the movie has them.  Some welcome, intentional, laughs also pep things up. And Dakota Fanning still looks natural with red eyes.

Eclipse lets us get to know the Cullen clan a little better, and though the flashbacks showing some of their history is more interesting than the current plot, it was unnecessary.  The same goes for the flashback history of the shapeshifters and “The Cold Ones”, their name for the blood suckers.  All those flashbacks could be better movies.  For what works here, the movie suffers from what ailed the previous films:  Kristen Stewart still resembles a cardboard cut-out, Robert Pattinson can’t brood properly (take some lessons from Christian Bale’s Batman), and Taylor Lautner seems to be the only one having a good time.  And I didn’t like Bryce Dallas Howard as Victoria, they should have kept the original actress, Rachelle Lefevre.  Howard was just annoying.

And, like the first two movies, it needs more Charlie (Billy Burke), Bella’s dad.  He’s the most interesting character.  I’d love to see a movie of just him trying to solve crimes in their small town, not knowing there is a territorial war between supernatural creatures.  That would be some kind of awesome.

3 out of 5
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