Film
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
- Director
- David Slade
- Certificate
- 12A
- Running Time
- 124 mins
If you’re determined to shoot much of your self-styled ‘romantic fantasy’ in unforgiving close-up, it would perhaps make sense to choose a cast who are not – let’s be charitable here – of limited acting ability. Much of this third instalment of the chaste and anaemic Twilight saga consists of its three principals emoting at one another as they fail to have sex. The unconverted, and those who have unwisely elected to join the franchise at this late stage, may be forgiven for bellowing at the screen: “For fuck’s sake – piss or get off the pot!” They might also observe that this bridging episode winds up pretty much where it began – indeed, it’s bookended by scenes in the same location – without actually advancing the story in any meaningful way. Instead, the three stars simply adopt their signature expressions for an extended festival of glowering. Human Bella (Kristen Stewart) is tormented and sulky; big-haired vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson, letting his contact lenses do all the heavy acting work) is tormented, conflicted and occasionally confused, as though wrestling with a particularly taxing differential equation rather than struggling manfully to keep Bella’s horny paws off his undead penis; and resolutely shirtless werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is tormented and jealous – the latter condition signified by narrowing his eyes so intensely that it’s a wonder he can still see. After nigh-on two-hours of this adolescent girly guff, whose cod-meaningful dialogue is delivered with risible solemnity, incoming director David Slade rewards the audience with a perfunctory vampires vs werewolves battle, augmented by the usual rubbish CGI.
The thoroughgoing humourlessness of the enterprise is underlined in a scene engineered specifically to facilitate the solitary joke. When Bella is in danger of freezing to death, Jacob insists that he should be the one to rub up against her rather than his cold-blooded love rival. “Let’s face it – I’m hotter than you,” he sneers. But although the whole thing is painfully earnest and quite stupefyingly dull, with an especially grim indie soundtrack, the producers clearly hit upon a winning formula. If they’d managed keep the plot in stasis while continuing to wring record quantities of cash from teenage girls, Twilight could, in theory, have continued forever, though Bella runs the risk of becoming, the oldest, saddest and most sexually frustrated virgin in Seattle
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