I have never seen these films before, but I’ve certainly caught the nasty griping wave that flows with them from critics and movie goers. Though, I have to admit, the fans of the book series seem to love these, regardless of quality. What you’re getting today with this review is someone who hasn’t dipped into the books or movies before, so I just wanted to put that out there before we begin.
Without further delay, let’s get this show started.
Twilight
The first film out of five is a tough one. The general synopsis of the story goes like this, Bella (Kristen Stewart) has moved in with her dad in the pacific northwest. She is looking for some peace of mind after and still recovering from her parents divorce. She is an outcast and finds herself in a high school full of people who know each other and have grown up together. In the midst of her depressing life, she connects with a strange gentleman named Edward (Robert Pattinson), whom has found himself in the exact same life spot she has — though, his own problems come from the fact that he’s a vampire.
Both kids end up falling in love, though the whole human/vampire thing turns into a struggle to get comfortable with their own needs and boundaries. Eventually, they find a way to make it work, but soon run into another problem with two rogue vampires committing mass murders in the small town. The story progresses and the killer vampires find their way to Bella, who becomes their delicious target.
Things go the way you might predict and by the end, a road of revenge is paved out towards the second movie.
The description you just read sounds like a decent to good story for teens to adults. The story, in hindsight, isn’t bad. There’s enough drama and enough of a potential bumpy road here to make something intriguing and engaging. The take that author Stephanie Meyer has laid out for the vampires in her books is fresh and interesting. There’s a lot of character construction that went into making these vampires more than just blood sucking Anne Rice creatures (she had a great take as well, so that’s not a knock against Rice).
Sadly, this movie fails in two difficult ways.
First, director Catherine Hardwick and writer Melissa Rosenberg have no solid ground for the story to progress. They jump around as if they’re reading the novel and picking out their favorite parts to put into the movie without giving much thought to character development at all. When we see Edward for the first time, his mysterious ambiance is dead on what it should be for his character. But they go nowhere with it. We don’t get much rhyme behind his reasoning, nothing outright about the tragedy of his life (he’s a vampire, he’s probably seen some shit). We simply just see him save Bella one day and then they have a connection. There isn’t a build up to the relationship, nothing of value at all to make you think they should be together. It’s so odd to see and it never really verbally or visually progresses into anything. Love stories generally have a build, but this one doesn’t build as much as it continually flatlines its way from point A to B. That sounds cruel, but that is what it feels like — flat.
Second, and this might be the culprit in the matter, the dialogue is dreadful. Dialogue should be used to express emotion, push the characters along and develop the story itself. The dialogue is written blandly, without much feeling or thought behind it. When the dialogue isn’t dreadful, it is scarce, which means we get more sad pouts and looks to tell the story, though the actors cannot make up for the lack of good dialogue with their expressions. The dialogue, while probably appropriate for teens, is not appropriate to push along a love story. It feels empty and lifeless, which is a missed opportunity in respect to the story. You want more to be said and explained during most of the film, but it never comes to fruition. Again, it feels like a missed opportunity.
Lastly, the acting is tied down by Kristen Stewart. Let me just say that Stewart can play a cool badass when the time calls for it. She can play a strong representation of a tough gal, who has seen some bad times in her life. Having said those things, Stewart was wrong for this part. Bella was either written poorly for her or Stewart didn’t quite have a good grasp on how she should be playing Bella. Regardless, her lack of performance with Bella ends up tying down the rest of the cast, as she is the lead in this movie. When she doesn’t come through with Bella, nothing works well. Pattinson does his best to bring Bella out, but even he ends up a lame duck here and there throughout the film. I know Pattinson can act and I’ve seen a good Stewart in movies like The Runaways and Adventureland. I’m inclined to lean towards the screenplay as the problem here, but nonetheless the movies go through Bella and Stewart simply cannot pull it off, which hurts the rest of the Twilight film.
The first film does end on an intriguing note, though, as we’re sort of introduced to Jacob’s motives (Taylor Lautner) and eventually rivalry with Edward and the vampires. Why haven’t I mentioned Jacob prior to this moment? He was pretty much a non-factor until the end. That’s the reason. The story does redeem itself slightly by the end because of Jacob, and it’s such a subtle redemption.
Onto the next film…
New Moon
The second film in the Twilight Saga is an interesting one.
The story in New Moon starts off a bit rough. Bella is thrown a birthday party by Edward’s family, but unfortunately gets a paper cut, which sets off a lot of vampire hunger — probably brings the party down a bit. Edward realizes that his love for Bella is strong, so strong in fact that he doesn’t want to put her in danger again, so his family up and moves away. Bella is completely devastated and unable to function in her day-to-day life…but her friend Jacob comes to the rescue to pull her out of the funk.
Oh, yeah, he happens to be a werewolf.
She apparently loves her monsters.
As time goes by, she slowly recovers her broken heart and gets through only to find out she is being hunted by a vampire named Victoria, who is enormously upset that Bella helped to dispose of Victoria’s lover, James (last movie). Of course, Jacob and his pack of wolves are on the prowl for Victoria, which leads Bella to accidentally falling into the ocean and nearly dying (she is rescued by Jacob).
Related to the dying part, Edward sees Bella falling off the cliff (from afar) and misinterprets that for Bella killing herself, which leads him to a coven of vampires in Italy called the Volturi. He goes to see them in hopes of them killing him because he doesn’t want to live if Bella is dead.
As you can imagine, Bella and one of Edward’s family members has to rush to Italy to stop Edward from disposing of himself.
It’s like the beginning and end of the film are just poorly done, while the relationship building and character development in the middle (Jacob/Bella) is actually quite good. Honestly speaking, the middle part is probably the most important part of the story anyway because it properly sets up what happens in the third film. The sudden departure of Edward at the beginning of the film is so abrupt and it just seems jumpy. Sure the actions of his family warrant a safe distance between them and Bella, but to outright drop her like a rock without much other build is one-dimensional at best. Don’t get me wrong, it introduces the reoccurring theme that Bella wants to transform into a vampire and live among them, but it does little else than seem cruel and out of left field.
The ending is the same way. The saving of Edward in Italy is abrupt as hell, as well as out of left field, and it seems like an entirely different movie when it’s introduced. However, introducing the badass Volturi into the mix does provides a dangerous element to the overall story that just lingers and hangs over the heads of all the characters. It also keeps alive the fact that Bella wants to become the undead. I like that element of the story and it does continue in the third film and becomes an important factor for the fourth/fifth.
Kudos to director Chris Weitz for actually developing and making the relationship between Bella and Jacob seem significant. That is a vital portion of the overall story and it is done extremely well.
As with Twilight, the two biggest issues continue to be an issue with New Moon — dialogue and acting, though the quicker editing and faster progression of the story makes for a more entertaining film. While some movie goers and critics might have felt they were getting more of the same in New Moon, the film was an improvement in some areas.
Eclipse
Eclipse starts with the eventual build up towards a final battle with Victoria and her newly born army of vampires. The entire movie is dedicated to the werewolves and vampires having to work together (or at least find a nice gray area to agree with each other) to stop what could be the eventual slaughter of their people, as well as the townsfolk that they protect.
As everyone is preparing, there is also a terrible rift between Edward and Jacob, as they both are madly in love with Bella. The majority of the film is the pair rubbing each other the wrong way, which is kind of entertaining to watch. Ultimately, the movie keeps the pair at odds, even towards the end you don’t see a real sign of forgiveness or understanding between the two. That’s how it should be, though, which makes this movie kind of uneasy from beginning to end.
Ultimately, the revenge that has led three movies comes to a head in Eclipse. We also see the the conclusion, or at least the admission of defeat, from Edward/Jacob (like I would tell you). We’re also reintroduced to the badass Volturi, who show that things are not as great as they seem between the covens.
If I had to compare which movie was the best out of the three, I would probably have to give it to Eclipse. It certainly tells a better, — even— story than the first two films. It’s not extraordinary by any means, but it’s certainly teetering on the side of ‘good’ when it comes to being a complete package. Director David Slade does a decent job with keeping everyone focused and on track, and we get wonderfully defined secondary characters who certainly add a bit of intrigue to the body of work (Jackson Rathbone’s Jasper Hale comes to mind as an interesting piece to the Eclipse puzzle). The dialogue, much like the other films, is still blah. The only emotion you get from the dialogue is driven by the actors and by this third film everyone seems to be on the same page in regards to story and what their characters should be.
As the movies progress in the story, the movies do get better, but certainly not to the caliber of entertainment that most good movies bring to the table. If you are a fan of the series or you just like this sort of thing, then maybe these films are for you.
On the Blu-ray side of things, the transfers for these films is exceptionally good. I think Lionsgate still does a great job with its HD transfers, regardless of movie popularity, so I am not surprised with the results. The picture quality is clear, clean and crisp. You won’t find any color banding here, which is shocking considering how dark this movie is most of the time — as well as how much blue overtone the film has on it. There isn’t any graininess or imperfection to the Blu-rays at all, so you’re getting great quality.
On the audio side of things, the films come to you in 5.1 DTS-HD and the aspect ratio of the movies is 2.40:1.
As for the features side of things there are no features to be had in this collection. It’s a straight up release of extended edition movies. That might seem like a big deal, but honestly for the MSRP of $24.99, the release is actually a steal — even without features.