Movie Review - The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

New director David Slade has injected a sense of humor into the solemn films about a vampire and a werewolf who sigh meaningfully in fields of wildflowers and argue about who's going to get the pretty girl. Melissa Rosenberg's script is sharper than her work on the first couple of "Twilight" films, and Slade — whose vampire thriller, "40 Days of Night" was tough and witty — has encouraged the actors to see the humor in the film's goofy love triangle and in such moments as the awkwardly funny scene where Bella and her father discuss contraception.

But the reason "Eclipse" is the best "Twilight" movie is that it has the best story — or, rather, that it has a story at all. Bella (Kristen Stewart) is committed to Edward the vampire (Robert Pattinson) and, as a result, she's contemplating the possibility of being turned into a bloodsucker herself and of saying goodbye to all the things she likes about being human. That's a big deal, especially for a teenager, and "Eclipse's" focus on Bella's dilemma makes her much less passive than she has in the previous films, where the vampires and werewolves ripped each other apart while her main action was twirling her hair in her fingers.

The romantic triangle remains at the center of "Twilight," but it becomes more complicated here (says Jacob the werewolf, "You can love more than one person at a time.") and, thus, more compelling. Bella has to grapple with the notion that the person/monster she wants may not be the person/monster whose best for her, which means this film, feels more like it's about her making choices than the dudes making them for her.
In fact, toward the end of the film, Bella finally declares herself with a sentence that suggests why she has bewitched so many readers and that promises good things to come in the final installment of "Twilight," which will be divided into two movies.

"I'm not normal," she says. "I don't want to be."

Pattaya Times would recommend you to go see this movie but be aware that it assumes that you've seen the earlier films (and, for that matter, read the books).