★☆☆☆☆ High School + Vampire + Romance = A Brand
"Let's face it: I'm hotter than you." Jacob (Taylor Lautner) said this to Edward (Robert Pattinson) when their beloved Bella (Kristen Stewart) shivers in the cold. This line woke me up from my coma. No, not this line. But I woke up to the immense laughers and giggling from the audience that are invoked by this line, which is the smartest joke played on by the actors themselves.While watching this third installment of the fantastically popular teenage series, Director David Slade knows exactly how to sell a brand and serve his fans. The out-of-left-field moments are expected, not required by the plot, yet very much expected and necessary for the fans. Fans want to see shirtless Jacob, so you see shirtless Jacob (easier transition as a shape-shifter? yeah, right...) as a service for the fans. But after doing it already in the previous New Moon, Eclipse is in a rather delicate position and things are a bit trickier this time.
Sure, there are other things. There's the battle scene with the vampires, werewolves, and the "newborns" (don't ask!). There's the highly frizzy chase scene of Bryce Dallas Howard as the red-haired villain. There's also an all grown-up Dakota Fanning! But Twilight devotees couldn't care less. They just want to watch the film repeats the overwrought romantic triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob again and again and again...
There's nothing wrong with the direction but the transition from the 629 pages Stephenie Meyer's novel into a 2 hour blockbuster proves to be a murky task. The characters are all crowd-pleasing dolls. So what if Bella goes to Edward to lose her virginity immediately after confessing to her Dad that she's still a virgin? So what if she is in love with both Jacob and Edward? Like the graduation speech given by Jessica (Anna Kendrick), everyone makes mistakes and when Bella tells Edward that "I'm not normal", every contradiction is justified.
Oh, and the painful expression on Edward's face. We love seeing our sweet R-Patz suffer in pain. And also Jacob who repeatedly walks around shirtless and convinces Bella of their love (until she thinks she is too). Watching Bella agonizing back and forth between two studs, over her stupid choice to become a vampire or to give into the hypnotic adolescent werewolf, and that's all the fans need. Muse's soundtrack is just a surprise and I feel, at many points, like I just saw the same action and scene few minutes before. Count how many times Edward proposes to Bella? And how many times Jacob said to Bella "I know you love me" and you have the whole movie. No, this is no repetition-variation either. It's just simply--the same thing.
After three films in the same franchise, no progression whatsoever is present in the sequel but definitely a lot of fun for the fans. And that's enough. Don't bother if you aren't a fan because Eclipse is defined as a fetish object now, made up of iconic scenes rather than any contextual plot. The silly flashbacks lack any delicious length and offer nothing new to the series. Everything remains still in the struggle between the civilized and primitive, the suppressed and transformed, sex and purity, but the themes are never explored in the movies like what Meyer has envisioned in her novels. Now, Eclipse is strictly business. Let's hope Breaking Dawn won't be.
(USA, 2010)
