OK. I promise I am not going to poke fun at the Twilight Saga like before. Looking at the record breaking ticket sales, I think the fanatic fans have gone beyond caring about what the critics say and have dived straight into yet another episode of this bizarre love triangle of a vampire, a werewolf, and a human girl. I for one have convinced myself that what I see is not bad acting. You can’t expect a several centuries old vampire with no beating heart and cold to touch to be more animated than Robert Pattinson, can you? Perfect casting. And I suppose the over-reacting, hot blooded Taylor Lautner is merely acting to the role of an animalistic werewolf. Or did he take it out on the break-up-make-up experience with Taylor Swift? Cynthia asked if I am a Team Edward or Team Jacob. My reply? I am Team Bella. I think in this entire saga so far, only Kristen Stewart can act well (while the other two are improving, so it seems). Without Kristen, there will be no Twilight Saga.
In fact, I think I am Team Alice. She is by far the hottest vampire I have seen. Please bite me, Alice! Come to think of it, I begin to be able to relate to Bella’s strong desire to be bitten by a – I presume in the eyes of the girls – hot vampire.
As though the filmmakers have read my lament earlier on, they have done something positive to the new soundtrack. “Twilight” soundtrack is great. There are good tracks by Muse, Paramore, and Linkin Park. “New Moon” soundtrack is forgettable. As for “Eclipse”, while there are quite a few album fillers, Muse has returned. Howard Shore’s composition on “Jacob’s Theme” is beautiful. He is the composer for “The Lords of the Ring” and “The Avatar”. And another strong track is “Heavy In Your Arms” by Florence + The Machine. The Australian jazz-pop singer Sia’s “My Love” is soothing to listen to and not to be missed.
This third instalment has the advantage of diving straight into the drama without the need to go through how vampire (episode one) and werewolf (episode two) in this bizarre Twilight Universe works. In addition, since the romance between a vampire and a human and the friendship between the same human and a werewolf have already been established, there are more rooms for drama beyond Bella and Edward or Bella and Jacob. For example, we now have Bella and Edward and Jacob locked in a PG version of a threesome. And there is story development for other characters too, which I enjoy watching. Less CGI, more dramas.
Cheesy dialogues still exist. Jacob still takes his shirt off – twice (if you miss it the first time he shows off his torso, you will have a second chance). Dakota Fanning’s involvement with the movie is still disappointingly minimal. The scale of the movie has grown and it begins to look more like a blockbuster, which is good. I feel that Edward the vampire does not seem to demonstrate his power as much as before, Jacob the werewolf does not seem to be as uncontrollably dangerous in wolf form as before, which is strange. What is missing, currently, in this Twilight Saga is for Bella to fall in love with a human boy. That would make a wonderful foursome.