THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE 2 stars
Summit Entertainment, Rated PG-13
While vampires live forever, the same is not true for vampire sequels. What was inaugurated as a densely erotic, and twisted take on underage stifled lust and rebel teen screen romance with the first Twilight venture, by New Moon started to become fairly old hat, and has now in its third incarnation, Eclipse, enters into sudsy, enough already territory.
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Seeming less spine-tingling horror fare and more like spoiled rich kids elaborately decked out for wilding in the woods on Halloween, Eclipse mixes in some new and old adversaries to turn the heat up on the action. But at the center of it all—for some unfathomable reason—is still the same old stale trophy teen Bella and her whining co-dependency issues while playing off rival vampire and werewolf boy toy objects of postponed desire. Not that there aren’t plenty of hints dropped here and there about more R-rated leanings: the reigning appetite is more a hunger focusing on skin than blood.
Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Eclipse finds Kristen Stewart’s Bella Swan facing life-altering decisions. No, it’s not about curriculum or career choices, but whether she should settle down—like, forever—with infatuated doe-eyed Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a wimpy vampire who still does homework, or go for Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), the male wolf that’s been making moves on her with those scary and sexy animal instincts.
But intermittently running interference on Bella’s extracurricular obsessions with her personal love life are stand-ins for schoolyard bullies known as the Newborns. Led by Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard), the thirsty death squad is a kind of unstoppable mutant vampire posse taking over supernatural Seattle to the burbs and beyond, and they’re after Bella too, which leads Cullen and Black to put aside their competing libidos for the time being to confront the trespassing menace.
Director David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) dons his master of multiple CG disguise to pour new life into an already overly rehashed story that, like the characters who want to have their abstinent taste of immortality and drink it too, inevitably resists wrapping things up, instead struggling for sustained suspense towards the ferocious ready-to-rumble but predictable finish line.
