Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Team Bella Should Choose Herself The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS The first two films in the block- buster franchise made a laughable cheesy mess of already cheesy source material. Naturally, I took crackers to the theater to see Eclipse (124 minutes). Surprisingly, though the acting is as horrifyingly ado- lescent as ever, the script markedly improved and the dialogue got a bit snappier. The stupid vampires still sparkle stupidly, but writer Melissa Rosenberg was stuck with the mythos Stephanie Meyer created. Of course, fans of this series aren’t exactly attending the film for Oscar worthy performances. They’re not even attending the film because their daughters are making them. They are attending the film to see pretty, pretty, actors run around half-naked looking gorgeous. Thankfully, Bella (Kristen Stewart) (a) ditched her old stylist or (b) got her image consultants an extra nice Christmas present this year, because her new hair and make-up are positively luminescent. It’s about time, because that raggedy mess she clawed at throughout the first two films had to go. Speaking of changing images, Edward (Robert Pattinson) should have put more effort into changing his, because he still looks like an 80s debu- tante. His daily mousse/gel/hairspray expenses must be in the triple digits. Luckily, the audience can distract themselves from Pattison’s grimaced “emoting” by enjoying the nonexistent Jacob (Taylor Lautner) “ward- robe.” Apparently, Costuming ran out of money before buying him any shirts. Too bad. All mocking aside (before Team Edward starts frothing at the mouth), this is easily the best of the movies so far. The film opens on a rather confusing note, with Riley Biers (Xavier Samuels) under attack by Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) in Seattle. Those unfamiliar with the books are probably wondering if they ended up in the wrong theater. Switch to Forks, where Bella and Edward are trapped in the throes of true love, making googly eyes at each other. Of course, all the mushy goodness can’t last, or there wouldn’t be much of a movie. It turns out that the first scene was totally relevant to the remainder of the movie, since Victoria was using Riley as part of an elaborate trap. Immediately, Edward and Jacob leap into action to protect poor, frail Bella. The secondary plot is comprised primarily of Jacob and Edward argu- ing over who gets to keep Bella, and Bella telling them to stop arguing. Occasionally, her father Charlie (Billy Burke) steps in to close a scene with a clever one-liner. Mid-movie, Jacob learns that no means no, while Edward continues to assert his patriarchal dominance over his soul mate. We find out a little bit of backstory for Jasper (Jackson Rathbone…The Last Airbender guy) and Rosalie (Nikki Reed). The movie ends several times without getting any- where, but finally the Volturi arrive to torture and kill a cute little character (Bree Tanner…Jodelle Ferland), off screen, of course. Overall, this movie might actually make it into my perma- nent collection, since it was my favorite book of the series. Not that I own the books. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com 20 UCW JULY 14-20, 2010 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM