TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE review: by the numbers
Jul 01
The Twilight Saga is about a young white girl whose affections are torn between an extremely old white man and a relatively youthful tanned fellow. The old dude glistens in the sun and wears make-up that makes him look like Data from Star Trek, while the young guy spends most of his time shirtless (even in the snow!), glowering, flexing his pecs, or being a wolf (for reasons unknown).
Data hates the Wolf-Boy, but, being the comfortably sub-standard person she is, the young white girl leads both of them on in an eternal struggle to keep tween girls reading the books no matter how long or stupid they get. Julia Gillard makes an appearance in the film as well [non-Australians: our new PM has red hair], as the series’ primary antagonist, whose sole purpose in existence is to something something (I didn’t watch the first film) kill the young white girl.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is a vast improvement over the last installment in the series, but that isn’t saying much; as I scientifically proved in my numerals-based review of New Moon, the second Twi-flick is one of those rare abominations of cinema that isn’t even so-bad-it’s-funny. To keep some semblence of continuity, I’ve employed the same technique of criticism here.
Some of these categories are new, and some of them are holdovers from last time, but the idea is the same: every time the movie broke my suspension of disbelief, I ticked a box. At the end of the movie I tallied the ticks in an effort to quantify the film’s worth (or lack thereof). As I said, the results are surprisingly positive, but don’t be fooled — it’s easily the best Twilight movie, but it’s a long way from being “hands the whole time.”
6 – Number of times the soundtrack doesn’t match the emotion of the scene
New director David Slade wisely eschewed the pop-heavy soundtrack style of New Moon and opted for a more symphonic, if hopelessly derivative, film score. This helps the film enormously. What few pop songs he does include, though, sound like mid-album filler from a record that wouldn’t even have been popular in the 80s. Oh, and there’s a Muse song, too; I may have counted that twice.
9 – Number of times Edward says or does something stupid
Last time, Edward crushed a phone with his bare hands, spouted second-hand one-liners and generally acted like a git, scoring himself 16 marks; this time around, Edward significantly improved himself and receives a mere 9 — some of the things he says even make sense this time. But not that hideously creepy proposal scene — I just wanted that to end.
10 – Number of times I laughed out loud during serious scenes
Eclipse, as with the previous Twilight flicks, exhibits the level of subtlety and logic a videogame script would be proud to call its own, and as such, is completely nonsensical and difficult to watch. Some of the scenes, though, are too much to bear. I tried to respect the people in the cinema around me, but sometimes the sheer inanity of it all got the better of me.
11 – Number of times Jacob says or does something stupid
Again, Jacob significantly improved himself from New Moon and scored a paltry half of what he earned last time, but there are still some head-scratchingly awful moments featuring the Wolf-Boy. It doesn’t help that Taylor Lautner’s delivery is about on par with what you’d expect from a 21st century George Lucas film.
12 – Number of times Bella says or does something stupid
Bella earns the big gold star this time around. She doesn’t try to kill herself once, she doesn’t launch into conversations with questions like “HAVE YOU TRIED NOT BEING A FREAK, YOU MONSTER?”, and she stays well away from her Apple Macintosh; dropping all the way down to 12 from 63 — 63 — is a feat worth celebrating. There’s still the small matter of her silly and unnecessary voiceover, and the fact that she tries to force Edward to have sex with her, and the fact that she is completely devoid of life and character, to prove that she, too, still has room for improvement.
15 – Number of times the laws of physics are wantonly ignored
This is a new category this time, and one that pops up early, and frequently thereafter. You know the kind of cartoon physics where someone back-hands another person across the room, or when people are shown to be running at regular speed but the landscape zooms around them like they’re some kind of pouty Superman, or when someone sustains horrific injuries to one side of their body but doesn’t even exhibit a bruise on-screen — Eclipse is full of that crap. I sort of get that Vampires are supposed to be, like, super strong, or something, but even if you could throw a guy across the room, at least make it look like you’re putting some effort into it — otherwise it looks like you just did it with kung-fu wires.
18 – Number of times the dialogue made me cringe
“I could care less” is one of those classic Americanisms that never fails to incite infernal rage in grammar-pedants such as myself. (The correct phrase, of course, is “I could not care less,” indicating that your apathy is total and all-consuming.) I began to wonder, especially in the early scenes of Eclipse, whether the filmmakers didn’t just decide to shoot the first draft and call it a day; a lot of the dialogue could easily have been fixed up with a second pass. Then again, maybe the script is just being faithful to the books. In that case, the books must be awful.
21 – Number of scenes that don’t make sense, lose their way, or are otherwise intolerable
This is the big one, the thing that drags Eclipse down from reasonable okay-ness to mediocre dross. The whole first half of the film is rambling and wishy-washy, and, just like last time, individual scenes often find themselves derailed for the sake of exposition. Some examples of bad scenes:
- The Cullen clan keep tabs on a local upstart Vampire group by watching the evening news. Because the evening news is infallible and extremely thorough, isn’t it?
- We are treated to a few extraneous but not unwelcome flashback scenes during the course of the movie, and one of them ends in implied rape. The atrocious crime is treated so flippantly the character in question might as well have been mugged and robbed — there’s no need to bring such a serious issue into such an incompetent entertainment.
- The movie cuts frequently to a secondary antagonist whose purpose and identity remain frustratingly unclear. Also, I still don’t understand why Julia Gillard wants that silly young white girl dead.
- The film spends an inordinate amount of time rehashing what happened in New Moon. The first few scenes are made up of “Remember we can’t do this because of this,” and “So how do you feel about what happened in the last movie?” character moments, and they drag on well into the second act.
- As in New Moon, there are a few editing non-sequitors on display here, as well. The most notable of these takes place early in the film, where some creepy vampire fellow breaks into Bella’s house and sniffs her sleeping dad. Bella walks into the middle of the scene and — surprise! — dad’s suddenly awake. I know the scene was designed to put me on edge, but it didn’t work. Not even a little bit.
- The worst of these scenes was near the end, and as such qualifies as a spoiler (not that I care, or anything): a little girl vampire is thrown over to the Volturi (the buzzkill jerks from New Moon) and faces an unknown fate. Will they rip her head off, turn her into some kind of Vamp-slave, or what? The scene cuts dramatically to black before the fate is revealed, and that cheapness is both annoying and disorienting.
There are plenty of other examples of scenes just like this — but I’ll let you to discover them for yourself.
86 – Total number of offences
For a film that runs 120 minutes, 86 illusion-shattering moments of ineptitude are enough to break the experience for me. This is far less than last time, but it’s still one big goof every 80 seconds, and that’s a little too frequent for Eclipse to carry itself over that fuzzy line between “absolute trash” and “good enough.” To be fair, though, it does have its moments, which is why I have devised a totally new category especially for this review:
5 – Number of scenes that are actually good
I was as surprised as anyone that Eclipse had any good scenes at all, let alone 5. That’s one every 24 minutes! Faint praise at best, but praise nonetheless. The main thing that elevates Eclipse over the dreary, never-ending New Moon is the biffo. The action scenes at the end almost make sitting through 100 minutes of mopey angst bearable – almost. Watching people’s heads and arms get ripped off is surprisingly cathartic after spending so long treading water, and for that, I congratulate Eclipse.
Other good scenes include a fuzzy but accurate Valedictorian speech given by that annoying girl from Up In The Air, an almost genuinely touching moment between Bella and her mother, and a sincere and — dare I say it — amusing interchange between Edward and Jacob in a tent on some mountain somewhere (or something); best of all, Eclipse (unlike New Moon) actually finishes, coming to a logical and satisfying conclusion.Much as I didn’t mind watching these scenes, though, they still couldn’t erase the dullness of all the others crowded around them.
It remains for me to quickly touch on the technical side of the film. As with New Moon, Eclipse features some half-decent photography absolutely ruined by a shallow grade; the film benefits greatly from its leaner running-time; Slade’s command of narrative logic is less tenuous than Chris Weitz’; and, as always, the performances are perfunctory but utterly un-convincing.
Just like the character named Bella, Eclipse knows it isn’t good enough, knows it isn’t everything it could be. Unfortunately, just like Bella, Eclipse doesn’t care that it isn’t good enough, and wallows comfortably in its own inadequacy.
So, in the end, Eclipse is just more of the same — another Twilight movie. But to be fair, it is the best so far (that is to say, it’s the least bad). If they’re going to keep making these movies — and believe me, they will — then it pleases me to know they’re actually trying to make them better. Maybe by the end of the series they will have learned to put together a genuinely good movie — maybe.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Illiterate twitter response to Oprah’s TWILIGHT: ECLIPSE screening is positive, I think
May 07
I have no idea how twitter works, so I’m going to have to take moviefone‘s word on this one: Oprah held a secret surprise advanced screening of the upcoming Twilight Saga flick Eclipse, and we all know that anyone ignorant enough to enjoy Oprah’s shenanigans is probably also ignorant enough to enjoy a secret surprise advanced screening of a movie like Eclipse, so needless to say, the response was overwhelmingly positive.
If, like the affluent Twilight mums who populate Oprah’s audience, you enjoy the whole Twilight phenomenon, then you will be heartened to read things like this:
@JustSoJazzyDiva OMFG @Twilight Saga #Eclipse was so freaking good!!! Blew Twilight & New Moon out the water!!! It was AMAZING!! YES!!! The leg hitch was in the movie!!! Suuuch a hott scene!!!
Does only 2 exclamation marks at the end of AMAZING make the declaration slightly less genuine than the 3 exclamation marks at the end of “Suuuch a hott scene”?
@Nicolediscogrll I just saw Eclipse. Oh my F****G god. Best movie I have ever seen. The fight scenes the love scenes oh my god. Hands the whole time and cried and omfg. This isn’t real. I love you Oprah. You will NOT be disappointed and the love sceenes are f’ng HOT. Turned me on a little.
Hands the whole time!
@Shannon_Haile Sorry Eclipse was amazing, sorry I couldn’t contain myself. Everyone should be GLAD the movie turned out
AMAZING.
No-one should apologise for the quality of a film. Unless it was shit.
Seriously, guys -- who used the last of the toilet paper?
Okay, okay, I’ll stop being a smartarse and let the Twihards do the talking:
@Vivian_Ortiz Eclipse was amazing! Can’t wait to see the final version! Best Movie Yet.
@CristalVaca Just watched Eclipse, it was f***ing incredible.
@Courtneex3 OH MY GOD!!!! Eclipse was absolutely AMAZING. Better then both New Moon & Twilight! Holyy crappp =O
@MochaChick8705 OMG!!! #Eclipse was so amazing!! Can’t wait to go to the Oprah show tomorrow to see Rob, Kristen, Taylor, and Dakota!! Look for my tweets!!@TrendingJB Just saw Eclipse!! AMAZING movie. That’s ALL I’m saying.
@WTFKStew “Eclipse was amazing! Can’t wait to see the final version! Best Movie Yet. :)
@twilightskittle ECLIPSE: BEST movie out of the series! It was so much more intimat…and the proposal was very touching.
@AlphieLJ was at the Eclipse screening for Oprah and what you are hearing on twitter is true. Two thumbs WAY up!
Oprah has a lot of power. Sometimes, she uses her power for good (i.e., charity); other times, she uses her power for evil (e.g. hosting quacks), and I think this is an example of the latter. Any time she supports a book or film that is not actually good, and her flock immediately buys a million of said book or film, then the makers of the book and / or film are going to get the wrong message; they’re going to think it’s okay to continue to pump out trash, because these desperate rich white women keep on buying it.
Anyway, I’m a little suspicious of that fact that none of the tweeters cited in moviefone’s article were even a little bit disappointed by Eclipse. Maybe that’s a sign that Eclipse is better than New Moon — but hey, that wouldn’t be hard.
TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE trailer is moody, absurd
Mar 30
The Twilight Saga: New Moon made the original Twilight seem like a masterpiece in comparison — faint praise at best. How will the next inevitable vampire / werewolf / teenage melodrama movie fare compared to its forebears under the auspices of new director David Slade (he directed Hard Candy and 30 Days Of Night before this)? Well, judging by this trailer alone, it looks set to continue the underwhelming trend set by the first two and romp gleefully into the realm of awfulness pioneered by its older siblings, heedless to the desperate cries of critics the world over.
I actually laughed out loud while watching this trailer, around the time Jacob Black rationally requests that Bella consider him as her lover instead of stodgy old Edward, or something. Goodness me, this is ridiculous; I’d all but forgotten about Bella’s boring, soapy life in the past few months since reviewing New Moon, but it all came crashing back when I watched this trailer — all the frustrated amusement, boredom, rage, and indignation inspired by that tepid title. Don’t these people realise they’re teenagers (well, not Edward, I suppose) and that they should be having fun and running amok and not starting worldwide wars with supernatural beasties? Idiots.
It feels like mere weeks since New Moon was polluting our screens — the 6-month turnaround between titles is astonishing. I suppose striking again while the iron is hot is probably a better marketing strategy than that employed by Warner Bros. in distributing that other tween supernatural series (Harry Potter) with irregular gaps and delays between instalments that only serve to drag the franchise out interminably. Whatever the reason, it means there is less time until the whole Twilight series is over with, which can only be a good thing.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse inflicts itself on US viewers on the 30th of June 2010; the UK release is scheduled for the 9th of July
Summer review round-up: the good, the bad and the ugly
Mar 01
Way back in the beginning of December, in our first week of existence, I posted a list of the five most anticipated films of the summer. Now that it is officially autumn (even if the weather obstinately refuses to accept this incontravertible truth), it’s the perfect time to look back over the past three months and put the summer releases in perspective. There were a few surprises, some hits and some misses, and more than the usual number of disappointments.
First of all I’ll deal with the aforelinked list. Here movies I was looking forward to the most:
Sherlock Holmes: 83/100
Holmes turned out to be better than expected. Downey, Jr’s ludic performance combined with Guy Ritchie’s gritty direction made for a fun, fresh and interesting reboot of the old super-sleuth franchise.
The Lovely Bones: 18/100
Peter Jackson’s saggy, bloated, boring fantasy was mired in CGI quicksand, lacked any engaging characters, and failed to entertain for its lengthy 150-minute running time. Here’s hoping that Tintin doesn’t also suck.
Shutter Island: 27/100
Martin Scorsese manages to achieve the impossible and make a terrible film out of an interesting premise. The cast is great, the locations are fun, and the direction is snappy and engaging– but the plot is none of these, hamstringing the film beyond any reasonable semblance of entertainment.
Avatar: 48/100
Eye-popping visual effects can’t help a mind-bogglingly asinine story, nor can competent action scenes undo hours of misanthropic preachery. The movie is too long by half, a bit too silly for its own good, and far too blue. Oh, and it failed to sell the premise of 3D, too.
It’s Complicated: 52/100
It’s Complicated was indeed on my list of summer movies, but it was filed under “Top 5 summer movies that will almost certainly suck.” Irony kicked down the door, waltzed into the room and force-fed us all humble pie when the Meryl Streep / Steve Martin / Alec Baldwin rom-com got a better score than nearly all of the movies that were supposed to be good. Oh dear. Sure, 52/100 is nothing to be proud of, but I’d rather watch a mediocre movie than a downright awful one.
The Hurt Locker: 80/100
If The Hurt Locker had had a solid release date at the time of writing, it surely would have made an appearance in the above article. As it stands, Hurt Locker is in my mind the best of the season, by a long way. I only caught it last night, but even on the last day of summer it’s still summer, so it counts. Contrary to Captain Howdy’s review of the flick, I didn’t find the script overly American in its discussion of warfare and the nature of humanity in the (typical of us) throes of violence and destruction; to me it was just a movie that pursues that most noble of enterprises in attempting to grapple that slippery thing somewhere in our skulls that apparently accounts for our bizarre cultural identity and unpredictable and oftentimes silly behaviour. The Hurt Locker was a wrenching, personal discussion of who we are framed with some of the most brutal, white-knuckle rollercoaster action scenes I’ve ever endured in a cinema, and for that it gets top nod from me: I’d give it 93/100, putting it right at the top of the two-dozen-odd movies of the past three months. If The Hurt Locker doesn’t win every single award at the Oscars, I will cry for days.
As you can see, I was wrong on nearly every count. This goes to show just how treacherous and misleading film advertising and critical hype can be, not to mention how terrible my skills at predetermination must be, but bear in mind that The Lovely Bones, Shutter Island, and Avatar should have been good — great directors were in charge of all three, and early trailers were promising – but they faltered on the home stretch and flopped lifeless and dull into cinemas.
Now that we’ve got the article recap out of the way, here’s a rundown of the films of the season, from worst to best (or at least the ones we managed to review):
New Moon: 01/100
Paranormal Activity: 12/100
The Lovely Bones: 18/100
Shutter Island: 27/100
Up In The Air: 28/100
The Wolf Man: 37/100
From Paris With Love: 39/100
Where The Wild Things Are: 46/100
Avatar: 48/100
Julie & Julia: (average)
It’s Complicated: 52/100
Bran Nue Dae: 55/100
2012: 62/100
The Road: 63/100
The Princess And The Frog: 70/100
Zombieland: 78/100
The Hurt Locker: 80/100
Sherlock Holmes: 83/100
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs: 84/100
Of course this list doesn’t include all of the other many, varied reviews we’ve been ransacking our DVD collections to write, or the hefty number of news article’s we’ve produced over the weeks.
So, three months in, how is our driving? We are vaguely aware of a regular audience of sorts that pops up to check out our posts, and we would very much like to hear from you. Do you enjoy current reviews, do you like chuckling at the hilarious witticisms we scribe while revealing new trailers or posters, or do you prefer the random old movies we dredge out to give a reel good inspection? Any and all feedback is appreciated, even if it boils down to “you are an idiot” or “my crippled blind dog with alzheimer’s can write better reviews than you.” As much as we love the sound of our own voices, we love the sound of our own voices yelling back at people in heated argument even better, so let fly your opinions and comments! What were your favourite movies of the past three months, summer or winter, depending on where you live? Were you disappointed by something you were sure would be awesome, or pleasantly surprised by something you thought would be awful? Let us know!
Froley’s Top 5 of 2009
Jan 01
Just kidding, New Moon is not only not in my top 5, it is one of the worst movies of all time. But now that I’ve got your attention, let’s look at 5 movies that were actually worthwhile in the otherwise weak cinematical year that was 2009. Bear in mind that up until December I wasn’t reviewing everything I saw, and I generally didn’t go out of my way to catch smaller or more obscure films, so these top 5 are culled from the three-dozen-odd mainstream films I saw over the course of the year (beginning with Yes Man in January and finishing with Sherlock Holmes this week). There were a lot of stinkers, quite a few that were just ‘meh,’ and a very few that were actually good. So without further ado, here are 5 of my favourite 09 films.
5 – Zombieland (78/100)
Fresh, funny, and frightening in equal measure, Zombieland was the quasi-original kick in the arse Hollywood needed so desperately in a year dominated by sequels, reboots, reimaginings, reinvisionings, reinventions, etc., etc. A sharp script, good characters, great performances, some truly wicked special effects, and a kind of fanciful charm boosted this flick head and shoulders above its competition. Undeniable fun.
4 – District 9
The trailer for District 9 — that first teaser where they interview the alien but you can’t understand what it’s saying — was amazing. It was so amazing, in fact, that it overshadowed the film itself, which failed to deliver on this uniquely intellectual and chilling premise, instead settling for a routine actioner set in a unique location with some great and memorable characters. Wikus’ reluctant journey into becoming an alien mirrors that of Jake Sully‘s, but is infinitely more complex, dichotomous and challenging than the cookie-cutter morality James Cameron forces us to swallow. District 9 had enough original action scenes and intellectual goings-on to elevate it to Top 5 status, but it isn’t exactly a classic of the genre.
3 – Sherlock Holmes (83/100)
A surprise late-contender for a Top 5 spot, Guy Ritchie’s rough-and-tumble, anachronistic, misanthropic, utterly compelling take on the old Sherlock Holmes tales earns a spot for the wonderful dialogue, top-notch performances, technically flawless script and virtuoso action scenes underpinning the film. In this case the trailer does the film an injustice, promising eye-rolling one-liners and cheap sex appeal, when in the fact the flim delivers at least partially on the kind of intellect, wit, charm and mystery you’d expect from the master sleuth. Bravo old chap.
2 – Moon
I went into Moon cold, with only a few positive words from critics and a brief synopsis enough to lure me all the way to the other side of the city to see it. I didn’t watch a single trailer, didn’t clap eyes on a single poster — like I said, cold. That’s the way you need to see the film, because the way it masterfully unfolds and subtly seeps into your brain is unique to a first-viewing. I definitely want to see it again, and will probably be more satisfied for the second viewing, but the initial confusion / comprehension / resignation stages induced by the film’s masterful structure, setting and — most importantly — performance is something you can’t replicate. If you haven’t seen Moon, see it.
1 – Star Trek (88/100)
How the hell did this blockbuster schmaltz end up at number 1? you ask. Because it’s a damn good film, I reply. Sure it’s embarrassing that a hyperactive Star Wars / Star Trek hybrid could take the number one spot, especially over smaller, darker films like District 9 and Moon, but whereas those films are more personal explorations of intelligent sci-fi ideas, Star Trek blasts full throttle out of the optimistic, idyllic, holistic vision future prescribed by series creator Gene Roddenberry, and gives us a future to feel good about. We aren’t just dealing with grim, isolated main characters here, we have a whole ensemble, and rather than tackling a single aspect of the future and technology, we get a more holistic approach, complete with black holes, time travel, space travel, space combat, alien lovin’, and so on. The fact that Star Trek successfully balances all those disparate elements elevates it above the more focused narratives of the aforementioned films, and lands it squarely on the number one spot. That, and the fact that I didn’t enjoy a film this year quite as much as I did Star Trek, and that kind of subjectivity is all that really counts when it comes to film, right?
Right, time for a few quick honourable mentions: Watchmen blew me away in Imax back in March, and gave me so much food for thought (as well as stunning imagery and a perfect soundtrack) that it was in my Top 5 until I saw Sherlock Holmes. Observe And Report gave me a few conflicted chuckles, as well as containing the single best use of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind” (take that, Fight Club) in any film, ever. Capitalism: A Love Story was trademark Moore — incendiary, biased, manipulative, terrifying, enlightening, but disappointingly uplifting. As good as the doco was, it was half an hour too long and used a few too many hypocritical elements to make its points (Catholic priests decrying materialistic greed? Please!). Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs surprised in its comedy and honesty, and was likewise a Top 5 contender until I remembered how awesome Moon and District 9 were. And finally, 500 Days Of Summer was actually pretty good; I was worried the soundtrack would be crammed full of indie bullshit, but it was actually quite respectful and the script was original enough to keep me thoroughly entertained, even when the lovers’ actions stopped making sense.
There were quite a few disappointingly average film this year, like Avatar, Slumdog Millionaire, Gran Torino, and Zack And Miri Make A Porno (all films by masters of the craft, all falling into the ‘merely good’ category); G.I. Joe seemed fun and coherent in direct comparison to Transformers 2; Public Enemies mixed dreadful casting with atrocious artistic choices and a predictable-as-hell script to come out as purely ho-hum; Bruno failed to resonate like Borat; Harry Potter 6 represented a slip in the already mediocre quality of the series; I Love You Man and The Hangover were throwaway late-noughties quote-fests with little real originality or wit; I’m gonna put Inglourious Basterds in this category because I liked it about as much as I disliked it; I think I’ll be generous and put Surrogates in here as well; and 2012 can rub shoulders with these films as well (come to think about it, I had just as much, if not more, fun watching 2012 as I did Avatar and G.I. Joe. Huh).
And then there were the actively bad films — Yes Man, Ghost Town, Friday The 13th, Terminator Salvation, Transformers 2, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3, The Final Destination, Paranormal Activity and, of course, New Moon. I never want to see any of these films ever again in my entire life, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll end up having to watch Transformers again for a full vitriolic review at some point, but we’ll see how we go.
So, an average year at the multiplex, with a few sparkling diamonds in the rough excrement of Hollywood’s dross machine. Like I said, I didn’t see every film this year, and I’m sure if The Hurt Locker had been released in this country in a timely fashion I would’ve seen and loved it already. What do you think — was 2009 a bad year for movies? If you cite Transformers 2 and New Moon as evidence against this, I might suffer a complete failure of faith in humanity, but I guess that’s your opinion, or whatever. Sigh. Stay tuned for Captain Howdy’s picks at the weekend.
See you all next year!
OPINIONS COUNT