Let’s cut the bullshit: This isn’t a good movie. More relevant, however, is that no one expects it to be. It neither achieves nor attempts the drama of Citizen Kane. No one goes in hoping to see the quirks of Fargo and no one reading this expects to hear it’s the modern-day Casablanca. If you’re reading this, you are in one of three categories: the hater who looks for and relishes any further depravation of the saga, the twi-hard hoping the movie equally captures the essence of Edward and the plot of the book, or a neutral third party who just wants to know if it’s good enough to drop ten bucks and two hours for on a Friday night. In this case, the most important thing you need to know is that it’s the better than the first two films in the series. Now, let’s break it down so everyone gets what they want.
For the haters: You’ve guessed it—this isn’t a movie for true cinemaphiles. Line delivery is lack-luster. Combat choreography looks too much like its lyrical relative. Narrative is melodramatic at most. Yes, cheesy badass music cues when Taylor Lautner first appears on screen. Yes, the werewolf animation is snickeringly substandard. Yes, Robert Pattinson still sports a whole tube of hair gel. But if you want a redeeming technicality you can use to set yourself apart from the seething crowd (because pure-revulsion is so New Moon), you can tell your friends director David Slade does something right somewhere between the less soap-opera-esque lighting and more subtle soundtrack that makes this third movie about two boy toys the one to reconsider.
For the twi-hards: Eclipse is an enhanced helping of the guilty and gratifying. You craved and they delivered. It sticks close to the textual original and gives you plenty of eye candy to-boot. Vampire favorites in the Cullen family assume a more central role, while earlier films kept them mostly marginal. The love triangle is in full-effect, only all-the-more frustrating and tempting on screen. Fantastical fine print like legends and folklore take a back seat to the more important elements of life or death and love or love. You get enough recap to put all the pieces together without distracting from reliving the drama of Bella’s decision of Edward or Jacob, vampires or werewolves. Don’t worry, cheerleaders of team hunk or hot-stuff everywhere: Eclipse promises to satisfy both sides. There is plenty of Lautner’s abs, plenty of Pattinson’s face. There is long-awaited cathartic relief for Jacob-lovers and steamy buildup for Edward-devotees (though we all know the real payoff isn’t until Breaking Dawn). Go and go again, but this time you won’t have to be quite as embarrassed your third time around.
For the neutral third party: Eclipse is not for everyone, clearly. But if you don’t mind a little cheese for the sake of entertainment, a little melodrama for the price of mythical combat, you and your popcorn could have a good enough time. Maybe you saw the first two and were rightfully gagged and dissatisfied. But look at it this way—the hyperbolic mush of setting up Edward and the annoying whine of introducing Jacob are now over. Giving up now would be like enduring the work without the payoff. If you let your leisure-need outvote your critic, the action’s not half-bad, Kristen Stewart makes her least-irritating performance yet, and the overall human elements outweigh the absurd. Fear of finality. Not being good enough. The over-protective dad. Wanting to have sex with your boyfriend. Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. If you look for it, let the movie work for it, you’ll see the satisfying skeleton of a human story only embellished with the extraordinary accessory of bloodless vampire/werewolf warfare.
The bottom line is this: If your girlfriend drags you to see it, there are worse things you could sit through.
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