Film Review: The Twilight Saga – Eclipse

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. 124 minutes. Rated M. Directed by David Slade. Screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg. Based on the novels by Stephenie Meyer.

Having sold over 100 million copies worldwide, there can be no denying the immense popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s award-winning, vampire-based fantasy romance novels that began in 2008 with Twilight. Written specifically for young adults, the stories focussed on life, love, fantasy and – most pertinently – romance. And just like with James Cameron’s Titanic, romance-starved young audiences the world over were captivated.

Traditional (the cynics might prefer ‘old-fashioned’) values of love, faith, honour and respect were interwoven into a supernatural tale about young Isabella "Bella" Swan (Kristen Stewart), a 104-year-old vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner).

This latest instalment begins with Bella and Edward negotiating the conditions of their relationship. Meanwhile, in Seattle, Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) begins to assemble her army of ‘newborns’ (humans recently turned into vampires) to do battle with the Cullen clan in revenge for the death of her mate James (who was killed in Twilight). The life they seek, in return, is Bella’s.

Where HBO’s True Blood plays hardball with the vampire/shape-shifter genre, Twilight plays softball, with the ever-popular team of impossibly beautiful people back for more teenage angst, thwarted passion, shape-shifting – all held together by some fantastically sharp editing from Art Jones (Hard Candy) and Nancy Richardson (Twilight). And while the audience registered their considerable approval when Mr Lautner finally removed his shirt, Ms Rosenberg's script (with the exception of one hilarious scene between Bella and her father Charlie, played by Billy Burke) eventually somersaults into self-reverential parody and, ultimately, unrelenting tedium.

Slade (Hard Candy), who famously Twitter-slammed the first movie, manages to make his mark with a sensational, rain-soaked opening sequence (starring Australian actor Xavier Samuel – pictured – who acts everyone else off the screen in his big Hollywood debut), before being numbed into submission with more of the franchise’s signature flowing ‘flowering meadow’ scenes, tree-hopping vampire sequences, and vampire vs vampire vs werewolf battles. There’s yet more shots of the cast standing around in the epic, beautiful locations pondering their future – which one gets the unfortunate feeling they don’t actually comprehend.

The fractured proceedings are all underpinned by Howard Shore’s (The Departed, The Aviator) particularly atmospheric score and Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe’s (The Road, New Moon) beautiful photography.

There is much to respect about Ms Meyer’s commitment to the value of genuine and meaningful inter-personal relationships, but one cannot but help feeling as though there is just not enough to it all to warrant what will become five films (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is scheduled for release next year with Part 2 due in 2012.)

So while it would seem that young, predominantly female, audiences simply cannot get enough of Twilight, let’s hope the filmmakers haven’t seriously under-estimated their young, demanding audiences’ patience. Or their intelligence.

DVD Review: Daybreakers

Daybreakers. 94 minutes. MA15+. Directed and written by Michael and Peter Spierig.

With Undead (2003), their marvellous, low-budget sci-fi/horror film about aliens who arrive to save the residents of a small-town from a zombie plague, the Queensland-based Spierig Brothers – twins Michael and Peter – launched their filmmaking careers. Here was a fantastically imaginative addition to the celebrated genre that literally sparkled with invention, broad brushstrokes of tongue-in-cheek humour and great affection for zombified chaos. What, genre aficionados eagerly anticipated, would they do next?

It’s 2019, and a mysterious plague has turned most of the world’s population into vampires. The remaining humans are hunted and farmed for their blood, but as the human race nears extinction, vampire scientists – lead by haematologist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) – become involved in a race against time to develop a blood substitute before the vampires, themselves, become extinct.

While there is certainly a huge amount to enjoy about this occasionally clever, big-budget blood-fest, unhappily, all the sheer, unbridled creativity that defined Undead appears to have been shoe-horned into a slick, genre treatment that just ends up feeling disappointingly derivative and unoriginal. It’s not helped, either, by the miscast Hawke (Gattaca) or the unengaged performance from a sedate Willem Dafoe, who both appear uncomfortably ill-at-ease with the material.

On the other hand, Michael Dorman is great as Edward’s tortured, human-hunting brother Frankie, while Sam Neill has a field day scowling and prowling around all over the place as Charles Bromley, the head of his human-farming corporation. Isabel Lucas feasts on her cameo as his activist daughter Alison – and there’s a strong sense that this much more interesting relationship was somewhat strangely abandoned in the scriptwriting process.

Ben Nott’s steely grey cinematography, George Liddle’s (Evil Angels) production design and Bill Booth’s (The Proposition) art direction stylishly account for the handsome, sleek, futuristic science-fiction environments. Matt Villa’s editing manages to ensure that the script’s obvious fractures and structural flaws don’t seriously derail the whole affair – even if you do get the feeling that, particularly in the ultra-gory, blood-soaked sequences, it’s all getting a little too indulgent and out of control.

Ultimately, however, it is Steven Boyle’s superb, Nosferatu-inspired ‘Subsiders’ design (with Bryan Probets, Sahaj Dumpleton and Kellie Vella turning in memorable ‘Subsider’ cameos) that steals the show – and it is this sub-plot concerning near-death vampires turning into marauding, cannibalistic savages (together with some particularly gruesome scenes of their extermination) that really lifts Daybreakers into genre-defining territory.

It’s just a real shame that the comparatively boring human characters (including Claudia Karvan as a stereotypical heroine) keep getting in the way of all the action and real excitement – to the point where you end up wishing they’d just drive off into the distance a lot sooner than they do, never to be seen again.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.