ECLIPSE (the only review you need to read!)

On a lovely Friday morning I hit the early showing of Eclipse. The phenomenon that is the Twilight saga is not without merit. The books are just...well...okay. The movies, so far, have improved upon Stephanie Meyer's work. I attribute this to the fact that she did not write the screenplays. Moving on to the movie! (Note: I am not going to go into who the characters are, etc. I am going to assume you have some inkling of the story so far.)

Eclipse: The Twilight saga, by definition meaning long heroic story, continues with this third installment. I loved it! The writing and definitely directing have all improved in this movie. And, well, the saga continues...
Eclipse picks up where New Moon (which I also liked) left off. Edward proposed to Bella, Jacob Black is a werewolf (as is all the studs in his tribe) and Victoria is on the lose still looking to have Bella for lunch. Things are pretty much the same at the start Eclipse. Bella wants to become a vampire so she can stay with Edward forever and his condition is that they get married. She, of course, sees the only reason a recent high school graduate gets married is because she is knocked up. There is a very funny scene with Bella's father, Charlie, as she asks him about the merits of marriage. He starts to have the "talk" with her about sex and she is not into it. Little scenes like this in the movie I find to make the characters seem real. The thing I like about the Twilight movies are that they make the teenagers seem like teenagers - at least to me. They are not stereotypical teenagers but just kids. That is refreshing! Their biggest worry should be the prom and graduation. Bella on the other hand has a lot more to deal with, like knowing vampires and werewolves, but those teenage things still are at play.
Some nice things that are in the book and the movie are the backgrounds of some of the Cullen family like Jasper and Rosalie. As well as some stories of the Quileute tribe on the history of the shape shifting wolves (basically they are not werewolves in the traditional sense) and their early encounters with "the cold ones."
On the horizon there is trouble as someone is creating a "new born" vampire army that will be bent on Bella's destruction. There is a little visit from the Volturi and an uneasy truce between the Cullen's and the werewolves to protect the town of Forks and Bella. There are some great werewolf/vampire fight scenes at the climactic battle that is very satisfying for the guys in the audience (of which there are few!).
Part of this wonderful vampire action might be in part to it's director, David Slade, who also directed Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night. I consider 30 Day of Night to be quintessential vampire movie viewing (also reviewed on this blog). His direction says a lot about this movie. Not only his ability to direct action and gore but to have the individuals react with believable emotion.
I did think that the Eclipse book was the weakest of the series and really could have been one big book with Breaking Dawn (that is why I am not impressed by her writing...she is not concise enough). I hope that Slade directs the next one and brings his magic!
There is always the question asked of which camp or team I am with - Jacob or Edward? I will make this easy - Dr. Cullen! He is more my age and, after all, he's a doctor.
MMMM (out of 5 M's)