A (Gasp) Decent Twilight Movie?

If you're not a Twi-Hard zombie, then you have to find compensations where you can. My wife is a fan of the Twilight series, and therefore we attend the film versions upon their release. The first two movies (Twilight and New Moon) were an eye-rolling howler of an experience. That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy them on a certain Patrick Swayze-Road House sort of level. In fact, New Moon in particular is so ridiculous that pointing and laughing would have been beside the point.

The first two films (boy, am I using that term loosely) were marked by wooden acting (Taylor Lautner), horrendous dialogue ("Have you ever tried not being a werewolf."), bad special effects (Werewolf, again), and truly bizarre behavior by the characters. Take the scene in New Moon when Jacob Spider-Man's up the house siding into Bella's second floor bedroom before she knows he's a werewolf. Does she ask "How did you do that?" Nope. Not in Twilight world. Here, no one acts like a normal human being. But the whole damn experience is so loopy and over the top, that I can't help but wear a bemused grin whenever I think of the first two movies. Like I said, compensations.

Now, Twilight:Eclipse has unleashed itself upon the masses. The reviews were slightly better than New Moon, and the new director, David Slade, has a good track record. In 2005, Slade made the shocking thriller, Hard Candy. A movie that found a pre-Juno Ellen Page taking vengeance against a possible child molester. Hard Candy is like the wildest version of a To Catch A Predator episode that you've ever seen. And for my money, it's easily the best performance by Page.

His next movie was the Graphic Novel based, 30 Days Of Night. A horror movie about a group of vampires that descend upon an Alaska town during the time of year when the northern most parts of the state see no sunlight for over a month. It's a pretty simple concept, and no one would accuse the film of being overly deep, but it is fierce as hell. The vampires are more like wild dogs than anything Bram Stoker ever dreamed up. The film also includes a genuinely passable performance by Josh Hartnett. An occurrence that should be marked by mad partying in the Hartnett household.

When I first heard that Slade would be taking over Eclipse, I thought it was a good move for the series and potentially a bad one for him. I was sure the movie would be better than it's predecessors, but I wasn't sure that anyone had the turd polishing skills necessary to make a genuinely decent Twilight movie. How would he manage the ham fisted dialogue and acting? How in the world would he get anything other than a brood out of Robert Pattinson? What about all the sighing by Bella? How would he stay true to what came before and still manage to correct the sins of the past? The usual rule of thumb in sequels is that after the first, the rest are marked by a series of diminished returns. I mean, whoever heard of the third film in a series being the best? Even with the bar set so low, I had my doubts.

Well, Slade may just be a miracle worker. Most of the improvements in Eclipse revolve around subtle choices. Not audibilizing Bella's every sigh, simplifying the dialogue, no hammering you over the head with the score, and fewer scenes in meadows are just four examples. The special effects are also better (if only a little). And the vampires and the werewolves feel more dangerous than in the previous films.

That's not to say the picture is perfect. Lautner--while improved--still seems to bite down on every word of the screenplay as if to say "OOH, look how intense and lupine I am." The film--while thankfully, more patient--can be a bit pokey at times. And I still have trouble with all the guys in the werewolf pack running around scantily clad as if they fell out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue. But maybe that's a "straight" guy thing.

Still, there is much here to recommend. Kristin Stewart herself, recently said that this was the first Twilight movie that she could watch without pulling her hair out. And I would say there is no greater beneficiary of Slade's direction than her. Stewart--who has been very good in every non-Twilight movie she has appeared in--was in serious danger of, well, not being taken seriously. Her terrific work in relatively little seen pictures like Adventureland, Into The Wild, and The Cake Eaters, was being completely overshadowed by the sullen, sighing, hair twirling performances she gave in the first two Twilight movies. Now I have been a Stewart defender all along. I think she does her best to ground the films in some sense of reality. But clearly, she has been fighting a losing battle against a screenplay that hands her some awful lines to speak and directors that didn't know how to tamp down on her ticks. It's a bit like watching poor Natalie Portman in the newer Star Wars pics. If you had seen her in nothing else, you might think she couldn't act at all. As Harrison Ford had once said to George Lucas (when discussing the Star Wars screenplay), "You can write this shit, but you sure can't say it."

I don't know, maybe David Slade is a super hero. He has managed to make a better than decent Twilight movie. Maybe we should have him take over other spectacularly crap film franchises like the Sex And The City series, or the wretched Brendan Fraser Mummy movies. Perhaps--if we want to give him an even greater challenge--we could have him take over for the execrable Michael Bay and make the next Transformers movie. Nah, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Sumo-Pop
July 9, 2010