Directed by David Slade, Eclipse is the third installment of the Twilight Saga and my first Hyena Fest review of 2023!
Danger once again surrounds Bella (Kristen Stewart), as a string of mysterious killings terrorizes Seattle and a malicious vampire continues her infernal quest for revenge. Amid the tumult, Bella must choose between her love for Edward (Robert Pattinson) and her friendship with Jacob (Taylor Lautner), knowing that her decision may ignite the long-simmering feud between vampires and werewolves.
Oh my god, I’m doing this again! I’m revisiting the worst love story of all time after having made a promise to watch every installment of the Twilight Saga every year on Valentine’s Day. What should be a day of love and chocolates is a day I dread ever since making this promise. But since this was the one film I found the most enjoyable at the time I first saw it I thought perhaps that revisiting it wouldn’t be so bad compared to the previous installments. And to give it some credit this is the most entertaining film of the saga since it’s the first one where action finally happens, but it’s still just as hilariously shit as the previous films.
The usual is here: toxic relationships, dumbass in distress Bella Swan, awfully aged CGI, stupid as shit dialogue, and romance. It has it all but at least it’s not so fucking boring and overly serious like the others… sometimes. There is entertainment value to be found in this one and sometimes unexpected self-awareness, which I am unsure was intentional or not. The writer of these films never changed but the constant change of director definitely has an impact on each installment, though rarely in a way that makes the franchise any better.
All the characters new and old are written like shit and acted like shit as expected, coming off mostly as annoying, toxic, and atrocious excuses for film characters. The indecisive dumbass in distress Bella Swan returns, being more useless and wooden than before that even a wooden plank has more personality than her. The film attempts to give her some form of development or arc that’s supposed to culminate everything she’s been through during the third act of this film, but in reality there’s none of that. She’s still the idiot that everyone has to protect and everyone has to prevent from making her own choices, whether it be in relationships or life-and-death situations. She is the majestic moron in her natural habitat.
Now to make something absolutely clear these harsh but true criticisms are on the character and not the actress Kristen Stewart. Like Robert Pattinson and everyone else in the cast involved in this trash heap of a saga, they were victims of terrible screenwriting and direction, so my disgust is only aimed toward the characters and not the people that played them.
With that out of the way let’s discuss that shitty love triangle again. Just like in New Moon, it’s a horrible love triangle with two toxic men displaying toxic behaviors that no sensible woman would ever be a part of, but for Bella it’s apparently perfect for her to play both sides and make the rising conflict between them even worse.
Edward is the overprotective and lying dickhead and Jacob is the overly jealous, aggressive, and truthful dickhead. You get both ends of the spectrum of toxic masculinity and Bella is all for it. How the fuck anyone was in support of this triangle I have no clue.
Now while the main characters and certain recurring characters are stuck in the same boring or infuriating places they have been in the previous installments, other characters in this film actually get some form of development. Rosalie and Jasper in particular get their backgrounds explored and we finally understand what’s been up with them for the past two films. But just because they get development doesn’t mean that the development is written well or they get better as characters.
I really hate the way Rosalie’s backstory is treated, especially when it involves sexual assault, a very fragile and controversial subject that gets mishandled frequently in films especially when treated as a plot device for character motives and behaviors. What pains me even more is that this was written by a writer (Melissa Rosenberg) who should have known better than to write something like that in such a poor manner.
And then we have the villains: an army of “newborn” vampires created by Victoria, the vengeful vampire who wants to kill Bella to avenge her mate from the first film. They built up these vampires to be very dangerous over the course of the film and they do end up providing most of the action, which is entertaining to watch, but as villains they are basic as shit and don’t have any sort of flair or personality compared to the Volturi from New Moon, who make a brief appearance in this film. They end up getting defeated pretty easily and rather pathetically considering all the build-up, and the Cullens act as if they were in the toughest battle of their lives when they won it by a landslide. The final installment would end up bringing a proper battle in the franchise but one that is ruined by one thing. But that’s a review for another time.
The story has its moments of typical unneeded and drawn-out toxic drama and moments of entertaining self-aware humor and action that make the film somewhat bearable to watch compared to the previous installments. Visually the film looks nice from a cinematography perspective but from an effects perspective it’s absolute garbage. Not enough quick cuts in editing are enough to hide how horridly aged the CGI is for this film, for both the vampires and werewolves. Also having seen the behind-the-scenes of what they had to do for some of these effects is extremely awkward yet hilarious as it really changes the perspective of certain scenes when I watch the film now. No one gave a shit about making the effects look good just as long as it provided entertainment for the masses.
Also, the music is nothing to really boast about as both the score and soundtrack by various artists feel like a mix of conflicted tones and add very little towards most of the film, except for when it kicks into very big scenes like the Bella and Jacob kiss scene where the composer decided to go full operatic on that shit.
And that’s pretty much all there is to say about Eclipse. It’s shit like the others but more entertaining in ways, making it the least difficult to sit through. And sadly I’ll need to savor this, because next Valentine’s I’ll be covering part one of the finale and it’s the one I’ve been dreading the most. Oh Eclipse, how I will miss you… kind of. I’m going to give Eclipse an F = 10.
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