Another ‘Eclipse’ Review – Doing Just Enough To Encourage Fans, “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” Delivers

Pros: Decent acting, character development, special effects, Sense that story is going somewhere
Cons: A lot feels very familiar.

The Bottom Line: The next installment in “The Twilight Saga,” “Eclipse” progresses the stories and relationships from the earlier films and is entertaining for viewers from teenagers up.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Series’ become tougher and tougher for non-fans the longer the series persists. Those who are not embedded in a phenomenon tend to be looking for something that builds on the prior installments while still giving viewers something that feels new, if not entirely familiar. So, for example, with “Twilight” (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_451430813316 ) the pressure on filmmakers was to please fans and get an audience who had not read any of the books intrigued in the story and characters. With “New Moon” (reviewed at: http://www.epinions.com/content_492450057860 ) the pressure was to retain the audience and not simply repeat the teen melodrama aspects and allow the audience to feel like the story was actually going somewhere. They largely succeeded. With “Eclipse,” the third installment in the “Twilight Saga,” the stakes are raised, especially for those who are not already glued to the series.

For that audience, the fear has to be that “Eclipse” will simply be a repetition of the two prior installments and will be more teen melodrama than anything else. After all, in “The Twilight Saga,” there is a romance to vampires and werewolves and much of Kristen Stewart’s acting involves alternately looking moon-eyed and falling down. With “Eclipse,” the formula is broken and the film fearlessly illustrates what it only implied in “New Moon,” that most vampires are actually angry and quite evil. While “New Moon” had the carnage off-screen, “Eclipse” illustrates it and the conflict becomes more than just a teenage “I love him,” “no, I love the other guy,” “no, I love the first guy more” story. And it is bound to be well-received by the fans. It was well-received by this non-fan.

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