Eclipse

Eclipse is my second favourite book after Twilight in the Twilight series. I finally watched the movie this afternoon (to avoid the long lines that inevitably accompany a Twilight movie during its first week) with the hubby in tow - he now claims that I owe him big time after he sat through the film. In reality, the third installment was actually better than the first 2 - Summit finally appears to be increasing the budget for these films after experiencing the huge returns. However, the third installment is also the one that deviates the most from the book.

In this movie Bella (Kristen Stewart) faces up to the fact that while she belongs with Edward (Robert Pattinson), she definitely has feelings for Jacob (Taylor Lautner) as well. Victoria (the mate of the vampire that the Cullens killed in the first movie/book) wants revenge and decides to go about building an army of newborn vampires to fight the Cullens and achieve her goal of killing Bella. In the meantime Jacob decides to reveal to Bella just exactly how he feels about her - while Bella is deciding between Edward and Jacob, the army of vampires advances to Forks to kill her. Is Bella safe? Does she finally make a choice? That forms the rest of the movie.

The chemistry between Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart appeared to be much better than that between Robert Pattinson and Kristen (however I wonder if there is any truth to the observation made by Joey to Chandler in Friends... if someone is a couple in real life, the chemistry on screen or on stage is not as great) - don't get me wrong, I am completely on Team Edward but I felt Bella and Jacob were more believable. I want Edward and Bella to be more passionate and I don't think the lead couple did that - I feel their performances were too restrained. Edward does look very handsome in this movie. In other Twilight news, they have broken the next movie into 2 parts - that is the best decision because the book is almost 800 pages long and has a lot of material to cover which would be next to impossible in 1 2-hour movie.

So the verdict: you will enjoy this movie if you are a Twilight fan. If you are not acquainted with this series, I would suggest reading all 4 books by Stephenie Meyer and watching the first 2 movies before sitting down to watch this one. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!!

New Moon does not disappoint

As one of my birthday gifts, the hubby took me to watch New Moon this afternoon - he is well versed with my earlier obsession with the Twilight series (and I say earlier because I don't think I am as obsessed as I once was - it's a much more toned down version of how I felt when I had just read the books and I know this because I am not constantly trolling youtube for interviews with the cast - I still think Robert Pattinson is super adorable though) and decided to make the "sacrifice" and watch the movie with me.

That it would be better than Twilight was never a question - from the trailers itself, one could tell that it was much better crafted and had a bigger budget than the first movie. The make up was much better, the direction too (sorry Catherine Hardwick) as well as the script (Melissa Rosenberg's second script for the series). The script is the real hero of this movie because the book itself is one of the worst books in the Twilight series for me at least and the movie could have been really bad and sappy but the script moved the movie forward at an even pace and kept me engaged throughout.

This movie is by no means going to be a critically acclaimed film or win any awards (besides the MTV and People's Choice ones where avid fans will make sure that it wins a few accolades) but it left me pleasantly surprised. In a nutshell, the second installment in the series is about Bella Swan (played by Kristen Stewart) who is dumped by her vampire boyfriend Edward Cullen (played by Robert Pattinson) for her own safety because he truly believes that Bella will be better off without him and the dangers that lurk around by default when one hangs out with vampires. She gets swept into a deep depression over her break up - enter Jacob (her best friend and werewolf) who helps her through it and rekindles her interest in life. Will Edward come back? Will Jacob and Bella be together? That is the crux of the film. In the process we get introduced to the wolf pack and the Volturi (the most powerful vampires and lawmakers in the supernatural world).

Of the cast, Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen did a bang up job. They were fabulous and creepy at the same time. Robert Pattinson was not in the movie too much and when he was on screen he was adequately good - Kristen Stewart also did a believable job as Bella. Taylor Lautner did a good job and was appropriately buff to pull off his werewolf alter ego. I am still undecided as to whether all 3 are good actors though. Hopefully I will have made up my mind by movie 3. That said, I have to note that they were not bad by any means and much better than they were in Twilight.

My recommendation is to definitely watch it if you have read the books. I am not sure how enjoyable it would be if you are not familiar with the books, the story and the characters.