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#5 - The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
David Slade, 2010
As a rogue army of vampires starts to gain power, a teenage human is caught in a love triangle between her vampire boyfriend and her werewolf best friend.
I'm not sure what I like less, films that can't handle set-ups or films that can't handle pay-offs. In any case, the Twilight film series seems to be comprised of both. While New Moon suffered due to its emphasis on developing characters while not having much in the way of an engaging plot, Eclipse tries too hard to compensate by shifting the balance to the opposite extreme. The film sets up a somewhat arbitrary conflict involving a rogue vampire (Bryce Dallas Howard) building up her own group of vampires in the woods near the small town of Forks, where human Bella (Kristen Stewart) is still dealing with the romantic tension between her, vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson), and werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Their issues start playing into a growing war that involves many different sides - the "good" vampires share an uneasy truce with the local werewolf tribe but both sides are forced to form an alliance in order to take on the rogue vampire army, and that's without mentioning the evil vampire cult introduced in New Moon that's waiting in the shadows for the ideal moment to strike...
If anything, Eclipse demonstrates how much unrealised potential that the series opts to sideline in favour of pursuing a stiffly melodramatic tale of romance between three very different people. Barely-distinguishable supporting characters get flashbacks to their past that invoke everything from Westerns to Prohibition-era gangsters to Native American folklore, all of which promise more interesting stories in their own right but ultimately feel too inconsequential in the face of the series' actual main plot. This film also ups the scale of its action sequences, but such scenes are still handled rather messily and don't make good use of the series' rather distinct interpretation of mythical creatures. The lead trio are hard to take seriously in these roles; Stewart's limp underacting and Pattinson's clear disinterest in his part make Lautner's hollow displays of passion and fury more engaging by default. At least supporting characters don't leave much of a negative impression. Just like New Moon, Eclipse has the odd moment that threatens to redeem the film; however, such moments are ultimately lost in the fray as the film sacrifices potentially decent characterisation for the sake of some ultimately underwhelming action scenes and the same weak romantic plotline that makes no distinguishable progress one way or the other in this film.
David Slade, 2010
As a rogue army of vampires starts to gain power, a teenage human is caught in a love triangle between her vampire boyfriend and her werewolf best friend.
I'm not sure what I like less, films that can't handle set-ups or films that can't handle pay-offs. In any case, the Twilight film series seems to be comprised of both. While New Moon suffered due to its emphasis on developing characters while not having much in the way of an engaging plot, Eclipse tries too hard to compensate by shifting the balance to the opposite extreme. The film sets up a somewhat arbitrary conflict involving a rogue vampire (Bryce Dallas Howard) building up her own group of vampires in the woods near the small town of Forks, where human Bella (Kristen Stewart) is still dealing with the romantic tension between her, vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson), and werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Their issues start playing into a growing war that involves many different sides - the "good" vampires share an uneasy truce with the local werewolf tribe but both sides are forced to form an alliance in order to take on the rogue vampire army, and that's without mentioning the evil vampire cult introduced in New Moon that's waiting in the shadows for the ideal moment to strike...
If anything, Eclipse demonstrates how much unrealised potential that the series opts to sideline in favour of pursuing a stiffly melodramatic tale of romance between three very different people. Barely-distinguishable supporting characters get flashbacks to their past that invoke everything from Westerns to Prohibition-era gangsters to Native American folklore, all of which promise more interesting stories in their own right but ultimately feel too inconsequential in the face of the series' actual main plot. This film also ups the scale of its action sequences, but such scenes are still handled rather messily and don't make good use of the series' rather distinct interpretation of mythical creatures. The lead trio are hard to take seriously in these roles; Stewart's limp underacting and Pattinson's clear disinterest in his part make Lautner's hollow displays of passion and fury more engaging by default. At least supporting characters don't leave much of a negative impression. Just like New Moon, Eclipse has the odd moment that threatens to redeem the film; however, such moments are ultimately lost in the fray as the film sacrifices potentially decent characterisation for the sake of some ultimately underwhelming action scenes and the same weak romantic plotline that makes no distinguishable progress one way or the other in this film.