The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (DVD) > Reviews (6)

After being lucky enough to score tickets for the advance screenings of the third Twilight saga installement Eclipse I thought I'd let you know what I thought before the official release date on July 9th.

I appreciate many of you may not enjoy the films (or the books or saga) but I've followed them as I've read all the books to date and quite enjoy the film adaptations.

The third installment picks up pretty much where we left off in New Moon, however, unlike the book it shows you an unknown character being attacked by something. The film then opens into the first scene with the main characters Bella potrayed by Kristen Stewart and Edward (Robert Pattinson) in their meadow, the usual sexual tension surrounding them, the intense look in his eyes when they kiss and et cetera, much the same as the previous two installments except with a little more intensity than before due to the characters having a lot more chemistry. It's a nice and colourful scene to open with and a good way to introduce us back into the movie, the meadow is back to it's colourful and flower filled state like the first movie (rather than in the second where Bella met Laurent when he was trying to kill her and it looks all dead and withered and bland)

The plot then centres around Bella and Edwards graduation from high school, a trip to Florida and an army of newborn vampires being created in nearby Seattle. There's not much else to say about the plot - if you've read the book you'll know what happens but this film is more like a follow on or a bridge between New Moon and Breaking Dawn. I enjoyed it, but I felt it was a little rushed and a few key scenes from the book were misplaced but I understand that it's difficult to squeeze a book into a 2 hour film and still capture all the details.

Overall the direction was good and their was a lot more chemistry and tension between the lovebirds and even more so between Jacob (Taylor Lautner) and Bella. I have to say some of the scenes between the two best friends are really heartbreaking and there are a few moments where you think she might just change her mind about Edward.

I don't have much to say about the soundtrack, it's much the same as the previous two movies and I felt some of the music scores could have been a little more dramatic but some of the songs did work.

The special effects were fluid, the human to werewolf transformation worked much like it did in New Moon. I'm still not a fan of the sparkly vampire thing but it's a key factor in the book, I just think sometimes they look a bit too twinkly. Also, the way the vampires are destroyed is a bit unrealistic but I think it's because they're supposed to resemble stone breaking and crumbling rather than corpses being dismembered and it is still, essentially, a film for preteens, families and younger people so you wouldn't want too much gore in it.

Eclipse is my favourite book and I was pleased with the way the film was portrayed, apart from it being a little rushed. The script was good and filled with a few little jokes which had me giggling and some of the moments between the main characters had some great dialouge as well as many great quotations from the book itself.

Eclipse is released officially on 9th July 2010 and I recommend anyone that enjoyed the previous two films to watch it. If you've not yet jumped onto the Twilight train and don't think it's for you, look into seeing it because I think this film is quite a lot better than the previous two and can stand as a film on it's own rather than needing all the background knowledge of the previous films.