The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Movie Review)

Six months have passed since Bella ran off to Italy to rescue her vampire soulmate Edward, forsaking her best-friend, and newly turned werewolf, Jacob

The latest edition in the massively popular Twilight Saga, "Eclipse", is a far cry from new director David Slade's previous film experience, which includes the vampire graphic novel epic, "30 Days of Night".

With a 50 day shooting schedule that included 16 hour minimum shooting days, Eclipse was filmed more like a studio independent than a blockbuster opening on July 4th weekend. Slade's perspective however has allowed him to infuse new life into the characters by giving Bella (Kristen Steward), a sense of choice, and Edward (Robert Pattinson), a set of fangs.

Six months have passed since Bella Swan ran off to Italy to rescue her vampire soulmate Edward, forsaking her best-friend, and newly turned werewolf, Jacob (Taylor Lautner). There she met the Voltori, the governing law of vampire society, who ruled that Bella was to be turned immediately. The film opens in a sunlit field of wild-flowers with Bella's voice reciting Robert Frosts' Fire and Ice. It's this poem that foreshadows the entire events of the film defining both the love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob and how vampires are dispatched.

The city of Forks is painted with a slightly more idealic colorscape, giving the film an appearance that its story is somehow lighter than the others. This is deceptive, however, as the events unfolding in nearby Seattle are cloaked in constant darkness. Characters like Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) and Rosalie (Nikki Reed) who, in previous films possibly had just a page of dialog, are given voice as we learn how they became what they are now, and Bella is faced with the choice of whether or not she truly wishes to be a vampire.

Slade's goal was to 'imply', more than to tell, and that's given through the feeling put off by the characters and lines that reflect situations that occurred in the books, but not on screen. A classic example of this is when Bella goes to Edward's house and "Claire de Lune" is playing in the background. This brings us back to when she first went to his house, and her feelings of meeting his family for the first time — an appropriate setting given that Edward proposes to Bella soon after.

The climatic feature is the 'battle to the death' between the newborn army led by Riley (Xavier Samuel) and Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) against the Cullen's. Yet the feeling is somewhat anti-climatic as the focus on the preparation for the battle and the attitudes of those involved seem more playful and assured, than alarmed. In the final face-off between Edward and Bella, versus Riley and Victoria, we're given an obvious foil between the two couples, showing what true love and true hatred can amount to. Jane (Dakota Fanning), and the rest of the Voltori henchment, arrive at the end of the siege to remind Edward that despite his desire to keep Bella human, he must honor his promise to the Council.

Eclipse is unique in that it manages to do what no other film in the series has done yet — move away from Bella's point of view. And it's through this that we're allowed to fully interact with the other characters and immerse ourselves in their story. Despite the fact that this film was more 'tell' than 'show', unless you consider the topless Jacob scenes, then the hardcore viewer may feel somewhat let down by the film. However, the casual viewer who's interested more in the continuation of the series will be pleasantly surprised.