It is near Bella’s graduation from high school in Forks, Washington.   Her life isn’t easy sailing because Edward Cullen still is worried about making her a vampire and Victoria wants Bella dead (she is never far away).  Victoria is using a new vampire, Riley, to build a vampire army in Seattle.   The Cullen clan and the werewolves form an uneasy alliance to protect Bella.  The flashback scenes flesh out the vampire history with the werewolves and the Cullen clan.  The Volturi watch the unfolding events as they decide what to do (take care of the vampire army or let things run their course).

ECLIPSE is an improvement over NEW MOON.   It has a good pace along with some good action scenes and humor.   Taylor Lautner is a more impressive actor than Robert Pattinson (who still looks too pained as Edward).   I hope there are some good deleted scenes for the DVD.    It was wonderful to see Jasper’s back story fleshed out and see the cameo by the godfather of Goth, Peter Murphy.  

David Slade is a good choice for directing this film.   The TWILIGHT films seem to find better directors with each film (and a hair stylist friend said the make-up and hair are better in this film than the last one).   The color palette is brighter than the previous two films.  Bella’s hair does look too perfect (because Kristen Stewart wore a wig for this one).  I do think Bryce Dallas Howard doesn’t hold up as a replacement for Victoria (I miss the original actress who played the part that had to bow out due to schedule conflicts).   Bryce does a passable job as Victoria.   Now I wonder what will happen in BREAKING DAWN which will be filmed as two films (but I hope not in 3D).   

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Two audio commentaries on disc one-

The first with actors Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart

The second track is with Producer Wtck Godfrey and author Stephanie Meyer which is an amusing commentary track

Disc 2 had the other extras including

THE MAKING OF THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE (a 6-part documentary) which goes into the various aspects of making the movie from the director to prep, production, the story, and the visual effects-

PART 1: INTRODUCING DAVID SLADE- perfect way to start it off with singer/ goth music icon Peter Murphy introducing director David Slade and everyone talks about how it is to work with the director

PART 2: PRE-PRODUCTION: SETTING THE STAGE-   training the actors to get them into shape and building the sets for the film

PART 3: THE HEART OF ECLIPSE-

PART 4: THE DARK SIDE OF ECLIPSE-

PART 5: LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION-  

PART 6: POOST-PRODUCTION: LEAPS IN TECHNOLOGY- how they improved the animation of the wolves for ECLIPSE (it is funny to see Taylor as a stand-in in a gray leotard) and the decision to make vampire be breaking like crystal to get the vampire battle violence to pass as PG-13

Two deleted scenes and six extended scenes with intro by director David Slade and optional commentary by David Slade.

JUMP TO…option for favorite Edward or Jacob scenes

A slide show photo gallery

Music videos for MUSE (“Neutron Star Collision”) and METRIC (“Eclipse (All Yours)”)

FINAL ANALYSIS:  ECLIPSE is the best in the TWILIGHT film series so far.  The making-of documentary isn't bad, but I could have done without the light humor moments.  I wish David Slade recorded an audio commentary for the film though.

this DVD review is (c)12-10-2010 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com