All Hope Has Been Eclipsed

After surviving the near insufferable boredom that is Twilight and New Moon, I was ready to call it a day on the popular teen vampire/werewolf franchise. But then hope appeared in the form of 30 Days Of Night director David Slade and the fact that many reviewers had been kinder to the latest installment. And while the new movie, Eclipse, is better than the previous two movies...I can confidently say that The Twilight Saga irredeemably sucks.

I thought that with all the dull character relationship stuff and backstory exposed in the last movies that would free up Eclipse to explore new ground in terms of the characters, story and mythology. But no. The best that can be said is that all the characters have evolved into something more mature and responsible. Their relationships are exactly the same but they've learnt to talk about their feelings rather than mope about and sulk. This is most noticeable in Kristen Stewart's Bella, a character in New Moon I could have quite easily throttled, if I had the ability to reach through the screen and grab her selfish, whimpering throat. Thankfully Bella's grown up and treated all around her with more respect...meaning I no longer hate her (a major step up for a movie's central character).

Storywise nothing much has changed either. Victoria still wants revenge on Bella and still runs about the woods a lot. The only new elements are the introduction of Newborn vampires and the fact that the local werewolves and vampire reluctantly team up to protect Bella. Oh and we get to see some flashbacks of the Cullen clan, a story device that was used to infinitely better effect in Buffy and Angel. What this adds up to is a plot that is far more diverse and faster paced than the rest of the franchise, but one that is still sleep inducing predictable enough to have you reaching for the crossword instead.

The big name actors (Bryce Dallas Howard as Victoria and Dakota Fanning as one of the ruling vampire clan) are utterly wasted with minimal dialogue and limited screen time. The action is effective but extremely brief, however the CGI effects haven't improved since New Moon, with the werewolves being completely obvious in their fakery. And Taylor Lautner is still shockingly wooden.

Slade does a decent job, but then that can be said of his fellow directors in the franchise. He's saddled with an uninteresting script and inherited the bland photography and locations of the franchise. But he's managed to get the strongest performances out of the central cast to date and has injected some viciousness into the action (there's at least two decapitations that I can recall).

So, overall, it is a step up in terms of quality. But that's like saying you've climbed over a boulder in an attempt to scale the mountain.