Since my last Hate Watch, I've made a technology upgrade. I used to use MS Paint to make my screenshots funny, but that's all behind me now. I'm now using MS Paint for Windows 7. MUCH better. I'm moving up in the world.
To celebrate my new ability to amuse, I'm bringing you the most amusing attempt at filmmaking of 2010: The third installment in the spectacularly bad Twilight series.
Eclipse. The darkest (?) chapter in the sparkly chronicles of Bella Swan, who just might be the least appealing protagonist in a film since Quasimodo. Played by Kristen Stewart, who actually is a rather attractive and talented girl when given half a chance, Bella manages to combine all the clumsiness and cluelessness of a side character with the sadism and sociopathy of a straight-up villain.
Coupled with a near-criminal lack of direction, a cast of men who are uniformly more feminine and sexy than she is, and a script shat from the mind of a Mormon, she never stands a chance.
I hated her from page one and it's only gotten worse. I would not have Edward's ability to resist ripping her throat out. In a way, I admire the fool.
Enough of that. Movie time.
Eclipse begins with the lovable Riley leaving a diner in Seattle and getting eaten by one of Twilight's "vampires". I'm not always going to bother with the quotation marks, but the only thing these creatures have in common with traditional vampires is that teenage girls find them appealing for no concrete reason. I've covered this in another Hate Watch, and I'll do my best to leave it alone now.
So Riley gets nommed, and begins the screamy process of becoming a vampire. Welcome to the cast of Twilight, Riley!
From this disturbing recruitment, the movie blasts off to the dreary town of Forks, in order to introduce us to the modern-day Romeo and Juliet, the dark and doomed lovers, Edward and Bella.
Flowery meadows are a favorite haunt of the doomed. Don't be fooled. Bella, in the last film, was basically told that she could either opt for immediate vampirefication, or be murdered by the creepy cabal of vampire kings known as the Volturi.
Naturally, since he is Worried For Her Safety, Edward refuses to convert his lover, despite her wishes and despite the fact that every instant of delay puts her at risk of a horrendously violent and painful death. She has to graduate high school and marry him first. Makes sense. When I could easily protect the people I love from danger and ensure their everlasting health, happiness, and physical perfection, it makes sense that I would issue ultimatums. It's just one of the many ways to show that you care.
Last movie, Bella vanished without telling anyone where she was going, somehow made numerous international flights, and spent a few days in Italy hoping to prevent her dead lover from committing the bizzaro vampire version of Suicide By Cop. Naturally, her father grounded her when she came back. Bella is not to see Edward except under specific Dad Supervision.
However, because the plot requires some unsupervised Edward time, Charlie's resolve collapses like a raincoat made of napkins.
Bella, who has to be the most ungrateful bitch of a daughter in literary history, seems to think it was ridiculous that she was ever grounded in the first place. Nobody in this movie acts like real people. I'm willing to let that go from a vampire, because maybe vampires have a different set of cause and effect as everybody else, but Charlie is a plain old vanilla human. A cop, no less. I wonder if he lets people out of jail because "they look bummed out."
Bella goes to school, just to please Edward at this point, and manages to talk him into sitting with her human friends. I was under the impression that physical proximity to humans makes these vampires go immediately insane with blood thirst, which is why the Cullen 'family' always sits together at a table nowhere near anyone, but today they don't seem to be having a problem.
He looks just thrilled to be getting to know her peeps. The only time I've seen a less pleasant expression on that face was when he he'd just been murdered by Voldemort.
Alice the Vampire, whose power is the ability to provide exposition without the story having to deal with any pesky 'motivation' or 'character development', has a vision of an army of blood-crazed baby vampires coming to Forks. Why?
Why would anyone come to Forks? Bella, of course! They're coming to kill Bella!
Know what my story needs? (Checkout. It's fucking great. Shameless plug.) A side character who's so unerringly prescient that the protagonist never has to struggle or work to obtain any information. I mean, who would want to waste all kinds of words on garbage like 'plot' or 'arc' when I could be exhaustively describing what Edward is wearing that day?
Maybe that's why the films seem so terse- we can already see what he's wearing.
Not much else to talk about, when you lose those paragraphs. Or pages, as the case may be.
So, there's a horde of angsty vampires on the march to Forks, with the specific intent of murdering Bella Swan. You may think this is a bad thing- the protagonist is in danger that she has absolutely no ability to deal with. She is surrounded by people who claim to Worry About Her Safety&trade while constantly placing or leaving her in harm's way. She has to finish High School, for pete's sake. How could it be any worse, you might wonder.
You couldn't be more wrong!
What other occasion could give us an excuse to practice our Vampire Karate?
Yes, I just did my best to make a Vampire Pai Mei joke. And yes, that is real Cantonese. And yes, I think it makes absolutely perfect sense in context.
The Cullen vampires organize a Vampire Karate class in order to teach the local Native American Werewolves how to battle an army of blood-crazed, mindless, recklessly violent newborn vampires.
The best way to do this, clearly, is to have the wolves stand there while you demonstrate a series of one-on-one vampire-on-vampire Kung Fu duels, with both partners using complex, precise ninja moves. The werewolves do not participate. Half of the duels end up in cutesy kissing, and I am not joking.
Throughout it all, Jasper the Vampire Slayer struts around the clearing, delivering such helpful Vampire Karate advice as:
"Never go for the obvious kill."
"Don't hold back."
"Never lose focus."
"Never turn your back on your enemy."
Now, I don't know about Vampire Fighting, but those hints have made me an unstoppable force in Final Fantasy Tactics.
A little later, Riley reminds us that he's still in this movie. He is the cat's paw "leader" of the army of newborn vampires, working for Assholette, who you may remember from my last Twilight Hate Watch. Now, even though Alice has already prophecied that the newborn army will be arriving soon, they haven't left Seattle yet.
Shut up, Riley.
So the Cullen vampires agree that Bella should be moved to some safe location until the crisis passes. Fair enough. Edward, remaining entirely in character, hands over the love of his life to a shirtless Native American professional vampire murderer werewolf whose stated goal is to steal Bella from him.
And he carries her off into the woods.
So we have an imminent threat that doesn't actually exist yet, a cast of psychos who don't behave like rational human beings, and a love triangle that I couldn't possibly be less intrigued by. This seems like a good place to take a break.
Concluded in Part 2!
