USA Today Says “Eclipse” is the Most Romantic in the “Twilight” Genre

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (** out of four), the third film based on Stephenie Meyer’s wildly popular vampire novels, is pretty much more of the same.
Team Jacob is still hotter. Actor Taylor Lautner spends most of the movie shirtless as Jacob Black — when he’s not shape shifting into a hulking wolf.

Robert Pattinson’s brooding vampire, Edward Cullen. still has the better hair and more dramatic lips — distractingly ruby-red, at times.

And Kristen Stewart’s Bella Swan, the object of their affection, is much less morose than in the earlier films. This may be because there is some steamy kissing with both Edward and Jacob.

This is definitely the most romantic of the films, although some of these scenes are set in flower-filled meadows that bring to mind feminine-hygiene commercials. The action sequences are harder-edged, and occasionally exciting, especially the scenes of vamps who sprint and run in mid-air, as if in flight.

But it’s still hard to see what all the fuss over ordinary Bella is about. And that inexplicable fuss is at the core of a love triangle introduced in the second film and drawn out in this one.

Bella really loves Edward and sort of loves Jacob. It’s high school, after all. Still, she’s not exactly torn between two lovers. Despite some potent chemistry with Jacob, Edward is the guy for Bella, and she’s willing to become undead to prove it.

Scenes in which she conveys a subtle sadness over her impending “change” are among the movie’s best, but they are short-lived. Mostly there’s a lot of nonsense about a vampire army of “newborns,” who have been recently transformed and are more violent and unpredictable for it.

We are shown more of the historical lineage of the Cullen family of vampires and a bit of lore about Jacob’s Quileute tribe. But these back stories are fleeting and presented in a clichéd, pastiche style.

While director David Slade’s unnerving psychological drama Hard Candy (2005) was fascinating in its unpredictability, he is hampered here by Meyer’s leaden plot, adapted like the previous ones by Melissa Rosenberg. Early scenes have a gritty tension, but the rest of the movie, with its slow pacing and lackluster cinematography, doesn’t live up to that initial promise. An appearance by the Italy-based vampire powerbrokers, the Volturi (led by Dakota Fanning) feels tacked on.

Edward’s courtly wooing of Bella has its charms. “You’ll always be my Bella,” he tells her sweetly. Jacob has an appealingly friendly bluster and some of the best quips.

He comes to Bella’s rescue on a snowy mountainside where she lays in a tent shivering uncontrollably. Edward, whose skin shimmers and has a marble texture, is powerless to help her. But Jacob, whose body temperature runs toasty, gallantly offers to warm her up. “Let’s face it: I’m hotter than you,” he tells his rival, and the audience laps it up.

The huge contingent of girls — and women with girlish fantasies — who liked the first two movies will doubtless enjoy Eclipse. But this third go-round won’t make Twihard converts of the rest of us.

(Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence and some sensuality; running time: 2 hours and 4 minutes. Opens at midnight in select cities and nationwide on Wednesday.)

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