First there was Twilight. Then there was New Moon. Now welcome back to the teenage melodrama with Eclipse. This time around, Bella faces her inner turmoil as she wrestles with the reality that she loves Edward and Jacob. At the same time Victoria is still after her for Edward killing her mate and an army of newborn vampires is created that could wipe everyone out if they aren't taken care of or the infamous Volturi step in.
Truly, Eclipse is the best in the series so far. Sadly, that says very little. Twilight was alright. New Moon was terrible. Eclipse is still pretty bad. These stories are basically the closest thing you could get to a big budget soap opera. And where they went wrong has (at least I believe) nothing to do with the filmmakers. The score was quite excellent. The cinematography absolutely wonderful and I think the best of the three. The acting even improved (though not by a lot). And there was even more action (but only slightly). The different take on the story helped a bit and I think the director must have worked a little on less awkward characters but that doesn't save them from their ridiculous scenarios and dialogue.
Eclipse further exemplifies that Stephanie Meyers books just make horrendous films, especially when realizing how faithful they are to the source material. The books might be enjoyable, at least possibly the first time around, but the reality is that some books should never be movies. This series is a good example. Although Eclipse is the closest they have come to bringing a good film to the screen in this franchise, if they stay true to the books closely there is no possible way to succeed after this. In fact, if so the next film will most definitely be worse. Basically, there is not much of any redemption for this series when it comes to quality. And when it comes to "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" I realize I start to side with "Team Bella's Father." And that's just because he adds a desperately needed small dose of humor to this laughable film.
Twilight made vampires "cool." Well, vampires were never meant to be cool. For good reason. And then it gave young girls a false reality. To say that this series is like teenie bopper softcore porn doesn't seem to far off the map it seems. Especially if you start comparing it to the idea of romance novels. Now in the midst of it's shortcomings it at least turns on the grounds of modern cinema and advocates abstinence. Unfortunately that can't save this sad storytelling from being so laughable. This is a generational film series and one that has a very influential impact on society but one that falls far short of such series of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. At least those series have some quality. Here, we just have young girls ogling muscular guys with their shirts off.
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