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The thing about The Twilight Saga is that so many people put it down before having given it a chance. So, after little persuading, I took off my shirt, drowned myself in glitter, and made my way to the local picture house to see for myself if it is really as terrible as the naysayers suggest.
It is.
The romantic music used during exchanges between Bella and Edward is thoroughly underwhelming, while other music would not sound out of place at Bratislava’s third most popular discothèque. Other notable highlights are fight scenes that would make the red Power Ranger blush and sexual tension between Edward’s vampire friends that is more fitting of prepubescents in a playground than century-old mythical beasts.
Never before have I seen a film that tries to explain so much yet means so little. The backstory is fundamentally weak, the way the story approaches the ‘soul’ makes very little sense, and the film’s peril often falls flatter than Jacob’s stomach. I find it hard to believe that the audience would feel anything other than a complete apathy towards the characters. To top it all off, I had to wait a full twenty minutes into the film until I glimpsed any beautifully sculpted, half-naked men.
The director might have had something half decent to work with if he wasn’t given a script so insufferably bland. I have, in all honestly, seen better plot development in the Teletubbies. The episode where Tinky Winky lost his handbag, looking over all Tubbyland before realising Noo noo had it back at the Tubbymansion, was a genuine gem compared to this drivel.
Throughout Eclipse, we are forced to sit through a seesaw of emotions that in no way progresses the film’s plot. There’s hardly ever a jokey moment – it feels like the weight of the world is constantly on the character’s shoulders. Scenes that try to lighten the mood such as the sex talk between Bella and her father are clunky and predictable. The marriage proposal may have stirred some emotion in me if Bella and Edward weren’t so utterly pathetic.
Oh yes, let us not forget what this film teaches us of vampires. They have superpower; sort of like X-Men, if the X-Men decided to be broody and self-loathing all day long. Vampires are also very fast, like Usain Bolt, or a startled bunny rabbit. Eclipse’s vampires retain none of the traits that traditionally make them frightful: even Victoria, the film’s primary vampire antagonist, resembles an unstable asylum escapee more than an unstoppable, hell-bent force of evil.
This film is essentially an extortionately budgeted telenovela, whose audience is a crowd of women and girls across the globe who would say ‘yes’ to Edward, their Vamp in twinkly armour. The most disappointing thing is that, underneath Eclipse’s superficiality, this could have been a good film. Some of the scenes might have been beautiful if the dialogue wasn’t so painfully grim.
Meanwhile, I’ll be washing the glitter from out of my hair.
In order to write an articulate, informed and professional critique of Eclipse I think it is necessary to see, or at least mention, the first two films of the franchise; and to actually synopsise the film.
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