Secondhand Reviews: "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"

 Rated Pg-13 for violence and sexual references in the dialogue.

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Presenting, today's special guest reviewer: Spike, A.K.A. William The Bloody, whom many of you will recall from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and "Angel".

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I really don't understand you humans, how your minds work. You're all a bloody mystery to me. Especially when you review movies about vampires: how can a human be expected to know how the movie compares to the real thing? At least this JBunce character had enough sense to realize that and give the spotlight this one time to someone who knows what he's talking about. You're not going to get the real insight from that Roger Ebert bloke, I can tell you that... or that JBunce either, for that matter. But onward.

You might remember that Bella was caught in the usual "am I in love with Edward or Jacob" yadda-yadda-yadda at the end of "New Moon". Well, guess what, boys and girls, she goes through the entire movie here in the same state. Well, isn't that a great bloody surprise? Meanwhile, Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) continues to haunt the woods waiting to get revenge on Edward, but this time she's building an entire army of "newborn" vampires... the strongest, most viscious kind... to help her. And the Volturi (the vampire "royalty") might have to come to the area to intervene, in which case they would discover that Bella is still mortal, and all Hell could break loose. Now, actually, that part could be fun.

Nobody in their right mind could believe any of the Cullin family as vampires. I mean, really! They're just like your average neighbors down the block except that they suck blood. I suppose that was the point Stephanie Meyers was trying to make in her book, but come on, people, one thing no vampire ever is is BORING! Even that wanker Angel had more character than Edward and his clan. And it gets to be a real drag sitting there watching Edward and Bella moon over each other and their painful lot in life and all that melodramatic la-de-dah. Where's the passion, people? Remember me and Buffy? (How could you forget?) Even Buffy and Angel, as much as I hate to admit it... there was a sense of real emotions there. Of course, it doesn't really help to have a piece of wood like Robert Pattinson as Edward, but Kristen Stewart is a genuinely good actress, you know? She's shown it in other movies and even given hints of it in the previous "Twilight" movies but here she just seems to have given up and walks through the movie like she's asleep. Well, except for one single scene with her father where she's teasing him about his anxieties over her relationship with Edward. She perks up in that one and then goes back to sleep in the next scene. ARRGHH!!

Hardly anybody else does much better. Dakota Fanning... again, a really good actress, but she's so bland and emotionless as Jane, one of the Volturi. After all, she's over a hundred years old but her body will never age beyond her mid-teens because she's a vampire... wouldn't you be a little more worked up about something like that? If you really want to see that kind of concept done RIGHT, check out Kirsten Dunst in "Interview With The Vampire". And I really missed Michael Sheen as the Volturi leader from "New Moon". Now, THAT was my idea of a vampire leader... cool, evil in a nice subtle way. But missing in action this time out. Well, at least there was Bryce Dallas Howard. Reminded me just a bit of my old flame Drusilla, she did... right on the edge of insanity (I grant you, Dru was a bit over that edge) but you could still empathize with her. And so, so evil. The thing with her building an army of the undead... now, yeah, that bit was cool, I'll admit. Pretty much all the scenes with her were. And the different flashback scenes that fill in the background of the other characters were fun, too... in one case, even one of the Cullens got a little interesting when you heard about his experiences in the Civil War.

Never been wild about werewolves, myself... they're really hard to get along with, you know, at least that's always been my experience. But they look believable in this movie and  the transformation scenes are not bad at all. The big battle scene with the vampire army doesn't come off too badly, either. But again, in their human form they're about as interesting as a lump of mud. And it gets pretty difficult to hold a straight face and not burst out laughing at the way none of them ever seems to wear a shirt in an environment as cold and chilly as the Pacific Northwest. Nope, no pandering to the teenage girl audience here, not at all!

People, vampires brood, sure. I mean, really, nobody could brood like Angel, and I've had my moments too. But we laugh too, you know? We have senses of humor and we feel all the usual things you humans feel. But these losers in these movies, you'd think they were some kind of robots stuck permanently in "Brood" mode. Yeah, teens can be melodramatic at times too, like that Bunce guy wrote about last week in his comments about that John Hughes character. But just like vampires, they're not one-note, the way there are here. Humans and vampires in relationships, you want to see stories that really explore all the possibilities of that sort of thing, you gotta catch that TV show that Joss Whedon (one of the more perceptive humans I've met) made about our little group in Sunnydale. And yeah, I know that you "Twilight" fans probably don't feel that way, and I'm big enough to respect your right to your own opinion. But just don't come after me trying to tell me how stupid I am for these comments. Remember, even though I am one of the good guys now, I am still a vampire... and I can STILL suck your blood.