Dem Reviews: Twilight – Eclipse

This was one of the worst piece of shit movies that has ever had the good graces of having an audience with my retinas. Sorry, that was the opening line of the review I had prepared before going into the screening of the latest entry in the “Twilight” series this evening. We’ve all seen the hoopla around the books, the mom’s who’d gladly go to jail to get a grasp of Taylor Lautner’s barely legal ass, the children camping out for days and that has definitely played a role of me wanting to shit on the series. So this evening, I was offered a chance to peep out the film so I decided to go check it out blind as I have never read any of the books nor seen any of the movies. A “n00b” in the truest sense of the form, I knew I was way outside my territory going into this but I had to be objective. And guess what happened? I actually thought the film wasn’t the steaming pile of shit I assumed it was gonna be.

Pros:

The story isn’t completely stupid, just kinda: Okay, so I said I had gone in there blindly but you cannot be on the Internet or around movie sites or avoid people in real life without picking up a few facts about the series. But beyond that, I didn’t know too much of the storyline and the movie wasn’t to helpful on letting me what the fuck was really going on for the most part. Luckily, I have an average IQ and was able to put pieces together with what this film gave me and without having the luxury of seeing or reading the previous installments (trust me, the film isn’t rocket science). Sure there are some pretty trite dialogue but there only so many ways to say “I wanna have your vampire babies”. But the storyline works well enough to keep you somewhat intrigued and it does take some turns into new territory. The best part of the film were the history of how some of the vampires in the group came to be and found myself wanting more of that. Sadly, there wasn’t enough.

Action sequences were decent: Okay, there’s only really one action sequence but it was well done. Heads getting ripped off, werewolves mauling the shit out vampires, the sounds of “diamond” appendages getting ripped off… pretty cool. Nothing too gory as it is a PG-13 flick but aight stuff.

Cons:

CGI is pretty shitty: Now it wasn’t SyFy Channel bad but for a movie franchise that’s raking in a shit ton of money like this, you’d think the filmmakers would spend more time on getting some better artists on the case but alas that isn’t the case. The worst part are the cheap tricks of NOT showing the werewolves transform. Instead they retreat to behind a rock or into the forest only to emerge as humans. FUCK-N-LAME!! After seeing the trailer for “New Moon” where they did show the transformation on film, I understand their concern but to completely avoid it like they did in this film, there’s no excuse for that.

Actors & actresses: Kristen Stewart is about as likable as herpes sores on ones genitals and didn’t find her the least bit entertaining. The same goes to Robert Pattinson. Taylor Lautner didn’t fair too much better but for the most part, he was the best “actor” of the main three. Even Bryce Dallas Howard seemed to be phoning this one in. And WTF was Dakota Fanning doing in this?

The director doesn’t break new ground: The directing on this film seemed phoned in. Nothing too stylish which was disappointing after seeing director David Slade’s stylish “30 Days Of Night” and the awesome “Hard Candy”. But I guess when you helm such a juggernaut, you’re at the mercy of the studio but they should have allowed Slade in inject something fresh into the visuals. Comparing the visuals from this movie and the trailers of the previous, they all could have been the same people handling the photography. A shame and a lost opportunity.

Maybe I’m getting old, maybe I’m just trying to not get jumped by the Twihards out there but I have to say, overall the film wasn’t bad and at times was rather entertaining. Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from becoming a champion for the film or the series in general as clearly I’m not the target audience for this kind of stuff, but I can totally see why girls like Twilight (this video here illustrates exactly why in humorous form). Does that make this a film good? Not in my book. But listening to Kevin Smith’s advice made me rethink this next generation of geekdom. We, as nerds ourselves, must defend our own kind, be it shiny diamond vampires or comic book adaptations. But beyond that this film wasn’t horrible. But it wasn’t enough to get me to watch the older films, especially since most of the Twilight fans I’ve spoken to say that this is the best one, by far. That doesn’t bode well for me ever watching the previous sequels. Not the total mess I expected but nothing I would recommend to Joe Moviegoer with an extra $10 in his pocket to check out either. But if you must watch any of these “Twilight” movies, this one won’t totally put you into a coma as there are far worse movies out there.