The Twilight Experiment: Part 3 – Eclipse
Much to my delight, we open with news of a serial killer on the loose in Forks. By this point, the Edward-has-a-fridge-for-the-bodies-of-young-women jokes are really just writing themselves, so just pretend I said something about that here, okay? But no, apparently this is an actual serial killer. Btdubs, this is, like, the third time Meyer has used the plot device of a mysterious threat that definitely isn't a vampire turning up corpses that we never get to see because that might actually be cool. At least in New Moon, we briefly thought the werewolves might have done it. (Yeah, I forgot to say because I was talking about Jacob's abs. Sue me.) Except they didn't because werewolves are rad and, as always, it is the vampires who both metaphorically and literally suck.
The serial killer stuff doesn't last, obviously, because there are conversations about marriage between a teenage girl and her 80-year-old lover to be had. I am initially surprised because Bella acts like she almost has a mind of her own for all of 30 seconds. Edward proposes again, she says no. I can only assume that whatever judgement-altering narcotics Edward has her under are starting to wear off. Presumably they are the same narcotics that Tom Cruise uses for Katie Holmes. Oh snap. Scientology burn.
Anyway, Bella then provides her flawless reasoning for not wanting to get married: 1 out of 3 marriages end in divorce. Wait, what? Bella, honey, there are plenty of reasons why you shouldn't marry Edward. I have them prepared in thirty-one page document. Colour-coded. With footnotes. This, however, is not one of them given that you literally want to spend eternity with him anyway. Eddie says he'll vampify her if she marries him. Okay, that's win-win, right? That's what she wants. No, that's coercion, she says. Honey. Much as I appreciate your attempts at becoming more than just a mindless dummy strapped to Edward's groin, coercion is what he's been doing to you for the past two films. This – and it so pains me to agree with Edward – is a compromise. Ugh. I hate you both.
Then we get a scene with Charlie, who I like more and more, because he doesn't like Edward and he does like Jacob. In fact, he likes Jacob so much that he ungrounds Bella so she can go see him. Yay! Jacob! Will Jacob be in this more? Soon? Yay! Jacob, however, does not pick up the phone so Bella straps herself into her truck to go find him. It doesn't start. Then she hears a thud on the roof. At last! Classic horror movie territory! And sure enough, BAM! Pale, overly-intense male with countless social disorders sitting in the passenger seat, asking in the husky tones of one who walks a fine line between sanity and throat-ripping if she was about to go and see her only other friend in the whole entire world.
Run, Bella. Run.
But she can't, because Edward disabled the engine. He explains that the werewolves are super dangerous and he has to protect – NO WAIT BACK THE FUCK UP. He disabled her truck? This is the tragic story, ladies and gentleman, of a promising young woman, her induction into a cult and eventual murder at the hands of her sociopath, abusive, controlling boyfriend. This. Is not. A love story.
On a side note, what is all this about the werewolves having no control? Since when? So there was the (rad) werewolf fight between Jacob and Paul (Paul the Werewolf. Really.) that I also kind of skipped over in New Moon because, hey, Jacob took his shirt off and it has been scientifically proven that neither man nor woman can retain basic cerebral functions when Jacob Black's shirt hits the floor. As I recall, Jacob leapt wolfishly to Bella's defence, preventing her from being flattened by an oncoming werewolf. Also he turned into a wolf in mid air, which was by far cooler than anything Edward has ever done. But still, they keep having all these conversations about how Jake could lose control and hurt Bella. We know that Edward apparently finds it a constant effort to resist Bella's super-delicious blood (probably it tastes like strawberries or that amazing sauce from the chinese restaurant round the corner from my house), but we also know that Edward, amongst his many other faults, is a hypocrite. We've seen him flip out when they were getting down with it (even if I do suspect it was more to cover up the fact that Edward is a colossal virgin). And Jasper's freak-out because of a paper cut made the Cullens move away (look, there was a lot of New Moon I neglected to mention). Not to mention every new vamp we come across seems to feel the need to dedicate their unlives to ripping Bella's head off, but that could just be a natural reaction. But werewolves? Nope. Apart from Paul the Werewolf, they have done precisely nothing to indicate that they could be threat to her. Vampire Threats: 70 billion and 2. Werewolf Threats: 1.
Bella goes to visit her mum, which is nice because her mum treats Bella like an 18 year old girl and not a toddler made of porcelain like a certain pouty sparkling someone I could mention. She also does a v good job of explaining why becoming a vampire is a bad idea. Actually, let's just take a moment to think about this: our main character actually wants to become a vampire. I'm confused. Maybe I'm thinking too much along the lines of traditional horror movie tropes, but aren't we always tying to, y'know, avoid becoming vampires? Isn't humanity always better, in the end? The sun on your skin, the taste of food, body temperature above zero? That kind of thing? What kind of effed-up mind wants a girl at the beginning of her life to freeze herself forever in time, locked in an eternity of attending high school with her high school boyfriend, incapable of having children or grandchildren, unable to get a job because she'll always be an unqualified 18-year-old, unable ever to see the only good friend she's ever had, cut off from her parents and loved ones because they think she's dead? Who would want to portray that as a good thing? Oh hi, Stephanie Meyer.
Ah. I've just found this, from the lady herself, on her website:
“I am not anti-female, I am anti-human. I wrote this story from the perspective of a female human because that came most naturally, as you might imagine. But if the narrator had been a male human, it would not have changed the events. When a human being is totally surrounded by creatures with supernatural strength, speed, senses, and various other uncanny powers, he or she is not going to be able to hold his or her own. Sorry. That's just the way it is. We can't all be slayers. Bella does pretty well I think, all things considered.”
Leaving aside the hilarious unintentional truth of the first sentence and the deluded falsehood of the last, this makes a lot of sense about Meyer. She's dreamed up this race of special, shiny, super-powered beings that no human can compete with; how terribly, terribly sad. Genuinely, I am sad for her that she has so little love for humanity. Humanity has a nuance to it that no monster we've ever come up with can beat – probably because monstrosity is always a distorted reflection of an aspect of ourselves. Even if your vampires are beautiful, strong, fast, immortal, can read minds, they just aren't...human. Can you imagine a vampire – especially ones as uptight and po-faced as the Cullens – on a bouncy castle? Failing a test? Getting dirt under their fingernails? No, because vampires exist in fiction to say uncomfortable things about who we are at night, in the dark – who we don't want to be. It's not a life we're meant to choose – at the end of Dracula, Jonathan Harker offers to become a vampire to keep his wife Mina company in eternity, even though it will cost him his soul and probably his sanity, and it registers as a sacrifice. Giving up your humanity is meant to be a sacrifice.
Besides, this fundamental misunderstanding of what monster fiction is for reveals how little understanding Meyer has of how to tell a story. In science-fiction, when the heroes are outnumbered by aliens with superior technology and numbers, do they shrug and go, “Yeah, you're right. We can't really compete with you guys.”? Does Buffy put down her stakes and go, “Y'know, I guess it would be better if the whole world was converted into immortal blood-suckers.”? Nope. Because that would make terrible drama. There's no conflict in shrugging and giving in. Sometimes, if you want a good story, you just have to fight. Besides, having your teenage everywoman, so bland that the average tween girl can easily insert herself into her place, turn around and talk about how much being 'normal' and 'human' sucks and she wants to upgrade to sparkly super-powered vampdom? And then actually letting her do that (uh, yeah, spoilers, I guess)? Houston, we have a problem. It's a horribly backfiring moral.
Yeah. Anyway. Back to the movie.
So the Cullens are chasing Victoria or something. Seriously? She is not a good enough villain for this to be her third movie. Also, I know I didn't mention in my New Moon review (like most of the film, then) but she really didn't even need to be in it at all.
And 18 and a half minutes in – it's Jacob! Yaaaaay! Edward asks Bella to stay in the car. She gets out. Yaaaay! Jacob is in the rain. Yaaaay! Jacob tells off Edward for lying to Bella and keeping information from her that concerns her. Yaaaaay! Bella agrees with Jacob. Yaaaaaay! Bella wants to talk to Jacob and he brushes her off. Yaaaay! Bella leaves Edward to hop on the back of a motorcycle and ride off with him into the sunset while Jacob flips Edward the bird and they have sex. On the motorbike. Because werewolves are awesome. Yaaaaay! Ok, that's not what happens.
Instead, Jacob takes Bella to wherever it is the werewolves hang out. I cannot overstate how much I prefer the werewolves to the Cullens. They tease each other. They kid around. They don't hold grudges. They don't respond melodramatically to paper cuts. Paul (snigger), who tried to kill Bella in the last film, greets her with a shrug and a “hey”. We also meet Leah, a girl werewolf who is bitchy and moody and is mean to Bella so that means a) she probably fancies Jacob because who doesn't? And b) we aren't supposed to like her. Too bad, Meyer. She's a bitchy, moody girl werewolf who is mean to Bella. So. Kind of shot yourself in the foot there.
Bella and Jacob have a conversation about imprinting, which is the werewolf version of love at first sight. I don't like this, mainly because it makes cool werewolves sound like Edward. Anyway, Jacob hasn't imprinted on anyone yet. Spoiler alert: when he does, it's going to make us all very, very angry. Bella tells Jacob she's going to get vamped after graduation. Jacob responds with “not in a month, not before you've even lived” and “he's got his hooks in you so deep”. Are they even trying to present Edward as a good thing at this point?
Speaking of which, back at Bella's house, we get some super-creepy shots of someone fondling Bella's bedsheets and sniffing her clothes. Turns out to be some other vamp but we're clearly supposed to think it's Edward. Edward shows up and immediately realises someone's been in there because when he smells Bella's dirty laundry, he always folds it back up neat so she'll never know. The Cullens once again rally round to protect Bella because they have nothing better to do. Bella points out that, thanks, but she has her own personal werewolf bodyguard. Naturally, Eddie hates this but vamps and wolves form some kind of alliance because Bella is so super-special, her safety is a greater priority than keeping a thousands of years old peace treaty.
So there's some kind of weird (symbolic) hostage-exchange handover where Edward (symbolically) gives Bella to Jacob, who is (symbolically) half-naked. “Doesn't he own a shirt?”snipes Edward. Oh Eddie, does the wind own a shirt? Do the trees? Does the moon? Jacob Black is a force of nature. A thrill ride through the howling, visceral but oh-so-alive forest on a starlit night. Baby, you can't stop him 'cos those abs just won't quit.
Scuse me, I think I need a shower.
So Edward does the douchey I'm-kissing-my-girlfriend-in-front-of-you thing (for a guy that's 110 years old, he sure does know how to do a very good impression of a seventeen year old) and drives off to hunt while Jacob enfolds Bella in his huge, manly arms and takes her to a werewolf party. Werewolf party. Bella Swan, I hate you.
At the werewolf party, we get the backstory on the originals of Werewolves v Vamps: Supernatural Smackdown – a long time ago, some vamps attacked the tribe, so the tribe shapeshifted into big fuck-off wolves and tore them apart. Fair enough. Also, some broad stabbed herself to distract the last vamp in time for her husband to kill it. Right, but why did she need to stab herself in the heart? We saw in the flashback thing that her dead son was in her arms, I know it's callous but couldn't she have sliced him up a little? He only just died. Or if it does need to be living blood, again, why the heart? We saw earlier than a paper cut would do it. Actually, if the vamps been attacking the village, shouldn't there be blood everywhere anyway? Whatever. Werewolves are still cooler than vampires because the entire point of their existence is to defend innocents from vampires. So tell me again, why is Edward the good guy?
Oh look, plot! More killings. Emmet thinks they should go to Seattle and deliver a can of whoop-ass. And he's mean to Bella. I like Emmet. He's practically a werewolf.
There is an Edward/Bella scene so boring it's not worth reporting.
It's Jacob! Yaaaay! This scene reads like a checklist of good and bad things to say to your girlfriend:
- I'm in love with you and I want you to choose me – kind of clingy but fine, whatever.
- I know you feel something for me, you just won't admit it – ok, let's not start getting Nice Guy about this, Jake.
- I'm going to fight for you – ok, not a problem.
- You won't ever have to change yourself for me or say goodbye to anyone – GOOD! GOOD!
- He probably can't even kiss you without hurting you – YEP!
- Feel that? Flesh and blood and warmth – I'LL SAY!
- Let me force myself upon you in a kiss that you clearly don't want - WAIT, WHAT?
Ugh. It's like SMeyer realised that she'd accidentally written a completely likeable character who had much more going for him than her pasty charisma vacuum of a leading man and went “Well shit, this is a pickle. WHAT CAN I DO TO RUIN HIM?”Oh Jacob. And we were getting on so well. Mind you, Bella then tries to punch him in the face (lady, violence doesn't make you a strong woman. It makes you unhinged) and fails hilariously.
Jacob drops her home and Edward gets all angry because Jake tried to kiss his girlfriend. I find this hilarious that he's getting uppity about Jake kissing her against her will (“next time, wait for her to say the words”) when he only knows about it because he's reading minds left, right and centre (I mean, presumably?). Hey, hey Eddie. Next time you sabotage her truck, wait for her to say the words. Or, um, how about sneaking into her room and watching her sleep? Wait for her to say the words. Or forbidding her from seeing her friends. Wait for her to say the words. This is a fun game.
Anyway, Eddie and Jake have a bit of a fight and neither cover themselves in glory because they act like Bella isn't even there. Despite myself, I wait for Bella to say “hey guys, I think I kind of get a say in this”. Nope. It is to dream.
Daddy Cullen patches her up and Emmet jokes about Bella's clumsiness. I like you Emmet. Then she says she punched a werewolf in the face. No, Bella. You tried to punch a werewolf in the face. You failed hilariously. Emmet says “badass” and Rosalie walks out in a huff and I like Emmet a little less and Rosalie a little more. Of course, we then get Rosalie's backstory because Bella feels the need to confront the one person in the whole universe who doesn't think she's super-special and sparkly. Turns out Rosalie doesn't hate Bella. She envies her. Jeeeez. Turns out Rosalie was vamped back in the 20s (maybe? the flashback looks like a low-budget Gatsby remake) when her fiance and his friends apparently raped her and then beat her up which, I must admit, is pretty hard-hitting for Twilight. Or it would be if we didn't get a nice sanitised version where no actual pain is shown. Daddy Cullen was passing by and decided to vampify her because she was dying. Fine but – why doesn't he do that for everyone? He's a doctor. He must see dying people every day. Does he vamp them too? Why settle on one random chick in the 20s? Isn't it kind of worrying that the only dying people he's vamped were attractive teenagers? Anyway, we then find out Rosalie murdered her attackers horribly while wearing her wedding dress, which is so stupid and cliched, I have to laugh. But basically, Rosalie is sad because she can't have babies. Yawn.
Somehow it turns out that the Volturi – or at least Dakota Fanning – are behind this. Or something? They're there anyway. This plot is weak and confusing. I feel sleepy. And hungry.
Bella graduates and once again, Best Frenemy Jessica reinforces the idea that being a human with your whole life ahead of you is pretty great. Bella manages to miss the point spectacularly. Jacob rocks up at the grad party, apologises, and says he was an ass (when does Edward ever apologise for his actions? Like, ever?) - and then Alice takes over Jacob-cockblocking duties with a convenient vision.
It turns out the Seattle vamps are an army of newborns (i.e. new vampires) that are deadlier than the regular kind, so vampires and werewolves must team up to learn how to fight them because there is a special way or something and I don't really care because VAMPIRE WEREWOLF TRAINING MONTAGE. For some reason, Jasper is fight master and we get to see the cullers attempting to take him down one by one. I like Emmett, so obviously he doesn't succeed. I don't like Alice, so obviously she does.
We then get Jasper's backstory, which is marginally cooler than Rosalie's. Apparently he was a Confederate soldier (rocking the cowboy hat, I must say) who was vampified by some wandering women of the night in scandalously diaphanous gowns to take charge of a – shocker – army of newborns. Then he meets Alice and becomes good. Did I mention I dislike Alice? She foresaw their relationship or some such bollocks. Why? Did he decide it? Cute. Fuck off, Alice.
Bella has a dream and works out that Victoria was behind this all along. Edward says Alice would have seen it in her visions but Bella says she's hiding behind the army and letting someone else make the decisions. Wait, what? In what world does that make sense? I get that Alice sees futures when people make decisions about stuff. But didn't Victoria need to make decisions to come up with that plan? And if she's letting someone else make decisions about her little operation, how is she in charge at all? What if they make the wrong decision? This is stupid. Twilight is stupid. Jacob hasn't been onscreen for nearly ten minutes and I hate everything.
There's some kind of convoluted plan to keep Bella safe by getting Jacob to carry her around because his wolf scent will cover her Bella scent but I'm not really listening because I'm laughing at the plot contrivances that get Bella, once again, up close and personal with naked Jacob. Edward obviously isn't happy but a) he can't walk around shirtless because everyone would feel sorry for him, and b) Jacob is more capable of keeping his girlfriend safe than he is. While carrying Bella through the woods, Jacob talks about their relationship again, casually dropping the bombshells that a) he can sense how Bella feels around him (he uses the word “nervous”, presumably because “supremely horny” would endanger the PG-13 certificate) and b) he let alpha-wolf Sam become the leader of the pack because he's just that cool. Jacob Black doesn't need a pack. He's a lone wolf. He wants to run free, wild, alone through deeper and darker landscapes, experiencing fierce and savage joys no mere human could ever comprehend, as the moonlight shines off his biceps and lights his torso with a nigh-on godlike glow.
I'm going to take another shower.
Also Jasper comes back to report the success of the plan, only now he has an inexplicably Texan accent. Giss huntin' newborns jest brings the old country floodin' back, dun't it? (I don't know, I'm from Wimbledon.) Alice shows up and blithely tells Bella that she's tricked her dad (who she calls by his first name) into basically leaving Edward and Bella alone together in the Cullen house. “You're welcome,” she winks. Alice Cullen: Super Pimp.
But, of course, our chaste teenage heroes, take the opportunity, AGAIN, to talk about their relationship. Jeez. There are so many things wrong with this conversation, I don't even want to touch it but it ends with Bella begging for sex so much that she agrees to marry Edward, basically just so they can bone. Eddie does his best to outright condemn sex before marriage without ever saying the words “true love waits” by explaining that he is literally saving her soul. Oh man. This is hilarious. Wait wait, Eddie. Hey, Eddie. So it's cool that Bella stood by while hundreds of innocents were murdered in Italy before her very eyes (almost) but she can't hop on the good foot and do the bad thing with you, despite the fact that you're going to spend eternity forever anyway? Because that's going to send her to fiery damnation? By that count, she should looking forward to a good roasting on account of all the lying, not honouring her mother or her father, and she sure as hell has been indulging in a bit of coveting the local werewolf's...ass.
But wait, it gets better. He explains that he's from a different era. He wants to court Bella, and ask her father's permission to propose, and wait until they are sanctified as one in the eyes of God before indulging in sinful, lustful carnal embraces. Wait, what? THIS MAKES NO SENSE. Edward isn't even that old, for a vampire. He's 110, he says. So he was vamped some time around 1917. He only lived in that society for seventeen years before becoming, essentially, a fixed point in time, and thus fully capable of rolling with the changes of each new decade. He's not a time traveller suddenly dumped into the fast and loose ways of the 21st century. For god's sake, the Roaring 20s started a few years later, and they weren't no church service. This is why Americans make crap vampires. They have no history to live through. Jasper's Civil War story is about as good as it gets.
Anyway, the upshot is that Bella agrees to marry Edward like we always knew she would, so all that wrangling about not wanting to be a teenage marriage statistic was pointless and token and really infuriating.
Anyway, none of this really matters because next comes my favourite scene in the whole thing. For some reason that I wasn't paying attention to, Bella is spending the fight in a tent way above the battleground. Does this mean we don't get to see the fight? BOO. Anyway. It's freezing and Edward, having the skin temperature of an ice lolly, can do nothing but watch as Bella slowly freezes to death. (On a side note – is cuddling Edward fun? Would having sex with be fun? Or just really, really cold?) But surprise, surprise, Jacob to the rescue because he comes in – shirtless, because werewolves scorn blizzards – and after a little face-off with Eddie, who has absolutely no moral ground to stand on here, jumps into Bella's sleeping bag to warm her up against his muscular, naked body. “After all,” he says to Edward, “I am hotter then you.”
Now, you;d think I might be nodding in agreement here - which I am - but mainly, this scene is just brilliantly, hilariously, unintentionally, smoulderingly homoerotic. Jacob Black, I am going to hold a ticker tape parade in your honour but you might want to stop staring at Edward with such animal intensity while you stroke Bella's hair. Things get even better when Eddie and Jake converse while Bella sleeps. “Could you please at least try to control your thoughts?” snaps Edward like a prissy vicar's wife. Jacob grins and calls him out on his mind-invasion things. Jacob Black, I love you. Stephanie Meyer didn't really write you, did she? Some poor editor who probably lives in a bedsit with two cats invented this glorious, decent, funny, strong character, and she has to sit back while you get all the credit. Poor thing. I think her name is Barbara.
They converse some more about super-sheshul Bella is and how hard it would be to lose her and yadda yadda yadda. Why? Bella has got to be the most undeserving heroine I have ever come across. I get that S Meyer wanted to create an everywoman character, someone with who the reader could easily put themselves in her place, but fuck's sake. Bella isn't even an empty frame, she's horrible and ungrateful and moody and manipulative and can't stand up for herself and apparently can't tell the difference between an abusive relationship and true love. Grrr.
Jacob insists again that she's in love with him too, she just won't admit it to herself. Jake, I don't like when you talk like this. You sound pushy. You sound desperate. You sound like Edward. Eddie admits that if they weren't natural enemies and Jacob wasn't trying to steal his “reason for living” (I thought you were dead), he might like him. Boys, boys, this sexual tension is unbearable.
Mercifully Jacob brings us back from insanity-land by telling him that even if Eddie weren't planning on vamping Bella, he still wouldn't like him. Because Edward is a whiny, fussy, uptight, over-protective, stalkery, controlling old man, and Jacob is a living god. Just so we're clear.
Next morning Edward really pulls off that gold medal in douchebaggery he's been gunning for by tricking Bella into revealing the engagement to Jacob. “He deserves to know,” he says unapologetically. Yep, it's definitely Good Ol' Jake's wellbeing that you're looking out for there. Then, just for extra credit, he tries to pull Bella back from going after him. Nice.
But then in a bid to stop Jake running off and killing himself (because apparently no-one in this series can handle a little teen heartbreak) Bella tells him to kiss her. AT LONG BLOODY LAST. And I don't even need to tell you how it's a million times hotter than Eddie's chaste fumbling, but I'll say it anyway. Because it is.
Thankfully, we do get to see the fight scene, and I have to say, it's pretty cool – even if they do manage to avoid real bloodshed by having the vampire limbs shatter like porcelain. Then again, I guess vampires don't have blood...but then where does the blood they drink go? I'm guessing they don't really have digestive systems, they don't seem to go to the bathroom or do anything too icky and bodily because then they wouldn't be so shiny and superhumanly perfect. So does the blood just sit there? Does it evaporate? Wait, how can Edward even have sex with Bella if – to put it delicately – vampires don't have circulatory systems? That's that moral dilemma solved, I guess. Huh. Vampire anatomy. Who knew.
Anyway, then Victoria and her sidekick – the one who was making all the decisions, so is technically the boss, remember? - show up and a slightly less cool fight scene occurs. A baby werewolf call Seth rips the arm off sidekick guy (it is honestly not worth learning his name), which is badass and Victoria goes to run away. Wait, what? How is this character even a villain? How is she worth three films of being the antagonist? She wants to kill Bella – Bella is right there! Edward has to goad her into coming back to fight him! For the 728th time, this series makes zero sense.
Anyway, they fight and it looks like Eddie will lose (oh no) until Bella remembers her old campfire stories and stabs herself in the arm to distract Victoria. Well, at least she had her brain in gear for once and didn't go for the full heart-stabbing deal-y. Maybe the story woman was just super theatrical and in the moment it just felt right. So Edward rips Victoria's head off. He's still not cool though. Then he sets fire to her, which, if you recall, is the only way to kill a vampire truly and properly. Except what he does is just chuck a lighter (where did he get it? He doesn't smoke. He wasn't even supposed to be in the fight, so it's not like he was carrying it around on the off-chance he'd have to flame a vampire corpse, is it?) on her body – literally throws it through the air of a cold, windy mountaintop – and not only does it stay alight but her entire body goes WHOOSH immediately. Are vampires made of gasoline? Do they have petrol instead of blood? Is that vampire anatomy? I JUST WANT SOMETHING TO MAKE SENSE.
Alice has a vision of Dakota Fanning approaching and it sends a dread chill into her heart but then again, we all have bad memories of War of the Worlds. Then, out of nowhere, one last vamp shows up and Jacob gets half his ribs smashed. No! Use strained plot contrivances to inject some semblance of dramatic morphine into the turgid corpse of this film if you must, but leave Jacob out of it! The Volturi show up because...I honestly don't know. I think they're supposed to be some kind of vampire police but – and buckle up here, because I'm about to agree with Edward for the second time in the film – as Eddie points out, if they'd shown up half an hour earlier they could have, y'know, done their job.
Making up for lost time, the last of the newborn army gets flamed by the Volturi (the Cullens stand by and watch like the horrible apologists for murder that they are) and Dakota Fanning says the Volturi don't give second chances. Wait, what? Yes, you do! Edward – in a really stupid, half-assed way, admittedly – was prepared to reveal your existence to humanity and you let him waltz off with a coy smile and a promise to be good! You said that Bella had to become a vampire and she's still human! You – you – you are terrible antagonists! Jeeeeeeez.
Bella remembers that her best friend got half his bones smashed up for her and stops by to visit while Daddy Cullen patches him up. I'm hoping for another werewolf make-out session but instead we get – predictably – another conversation about relationships. “Edward isn't as perfect as you think,” says Jacob. “I know who he is,” says Bella. Oh, honey. I almost feel sorry for you. “I am exactly right for you,” says Jacob from his manly, sweaty bed of pain. “With me it would be as easy as breathing.” Jake, Jake, Jake, we know. We get it. But some people, y'know. It's like trying to reason with Creationists. My advice is forget her and move on. Maybe with someone with a slightly greater range of facial expression. Someone who writes a Batman-flavoured blog about pop culture and has her very own cat, perhaps.
So we finish with Bella and Edward sitting in a meadow of wildflowers talking about their wedding. Since you can probably imagine what it cost me to type that, I don't need to say much more. Edward tells her that she's giving away too much, trying to make everyone else happy. That's funny, because to me responding to queries about the guest list and reception with “who cares?” kind of suggests, I don't know, the exact opposite. Bella says that the choice between him and Jacob is "the choice between who I should be and who I am". Wait, what? THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Recognising flaws in your character is not a bad thing, Miss Bella Perfect-Special-Monster-Bait Swan, it really isn't. She continues to justify her terrible life choices by saying she's "had to face death and pain and loss in your world, but I've never felt stronger or more myself". Bella, why does everything you say make me want to hit you in the face? Here's a handy clue: if death and pain is making you feel stronger, it probably isn't really happening to you. What you mean is that a few random people you didn't really know died and now you get to make some pseudo-profound observations on life. Congratu-horrible.
“I want to tie myself to you in every humanly way possible,” says Eddie. Oh, just shag. “Starting with our wedding,” he reminds her. Jeeeez. Eddie, you've managed to cockblock yourself. You awful, awful, prudish, boring fictional creation.
And then it doesn't even end with them kissing. They just kind of...touch faces.
In conclusion, for a movie that's supposed to be the “good” one of the series, this is just horrible. It's not inadvertently funny enough to mock like the first one, nor does it have anything genuinely enjoyable about it like the second one. Great characters (Jacob) do contrived, horrible things and NONE OF THE PLOT MAKES SENSE. The fight scenes are pretty cool but they are few and far between because didn't you know? This story is about romance.
If you are acquainted with any young girls between the ages of eleven and fourteen, pay attention. Now, if you are over thirty and not related to any of them, go and take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself some difficult questions. The rest of you, listen up. Do not stop your young children/sisters/cousins etc from reading and watching Twilight. It really isn't worth the sweat off your liberal, mature brows. But at the same time, try and slip them a copy of Little Women or Anne of Green Gables or Jane Eyre so that when they inevitably grow out of the franchise, good books that don't hate women will be waiting for them, along with Wuthering Heights which will deconstruct everything they ever thought was romantic.
