Before I start this review, I am going to honestly and clearly identify my disdain for this series. As a cinephile, I hate it for its poorly written plot, soap opera characters, and horrendous special
effects. As a vampire and werewolves fan, I hate it for transforming
the former into sparkly comic-book rejects and the latter into
over-sized stuffed foxes. And as a fan of a good romantic story, I hate
it for its stalker protagonists, completely annoying female lead, and
its mission against any sort of feminism or female equality. I hate
this franchise and everything it stands for. That being said, I’ve
sworn to look at this film just as a movie and to put my bias against
this franchise aside when I watch it. That being said, while Twilight Saga: Eclipse is better than its predecessor, that’s not saying much.

Picking up where its horrendous predecessor New Moon left off, we find that the romance between human girl Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) has reached
another stage, as Edward consistently pushes for marriage while Bella’s
vampiric transformation draws nearer. Further complicating things is
the return of werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), whose resentment
towards Edward and his advances on Bella only causes romantic conflict
and confusion, and ultimately creates a central love triangle that
pushes the rest of the movie. At the same time (although it’s more of a
side plot in comparison to the love triangle), Victoria (Bryce Dallas
Howard), an old enemy of the Cullens, forms an army of New-Born
vampires to destroy the Cullens once and for all. Hopelessly
outnumbered, the Cullens must gain the help of the werewolves if they
are to have any hope of victory.

As I said before, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is an improvement over its previous installments because there are actually some redeeming things about it. For one thing, the movie is pleasing on
a purely physical level as the soundtrack is decent, the action is okay
for the first most part (resembling something out of a lower budget
superhero film), and the visual effects no longer look like something
the sci-fi channel shelled out for a 4am crap fest. Also, I appreciate
that director James Slade attempted to give a little more depth to many
of the supporting characters, who previously were cardboard cutouts
with all the dimension of a set background. This brought about a use of
flashbacks that certainly added to the movie, particularly for the
character of Jasper Hale, whose flashback sequence was easily one of
the best moments in the film.

With all this in mind, this film is an improvement, but as I said before that doesn’t really mean much as this newest installment is put together just as badly as the other films, albeit with better packaging
and polish. The writing is as bad as ever, chock full of poorly written
dialogue, soap opera cliches, and a dragging storyline that makes the
two hour film feel like a mini-series. The characters themselves are
quite annoying (with Bella Swan leaps and bounds ahead of everyone in
that department) and the acting across the board is quite horrendous.
The actors know that the story and characters don’t matter, because
will go see this film regardless. People with half a brain however will
recognize this and not care either.

Overall, the film is not the worst film ever or even a terrible one. It’s a bad film for sure, but at least there are a couple redeeming things about it, which is more than can be said for its predecessors.
Still though, it is quite bad and I would reccomend skipping it.