hilary malveaux

me and my fellow Twihards went to the midnight showing of Eclipse at Signature Theater last night. or early this morning, rather.

we arrived at the theater at about 6:30 PM yesterday evening, settled into our canvas chair-in-a-bag chairs and prepared to wait outside in the 97 degree, though breezy, heat. i would like to take this time to commend Signature for their thoughtfulness; we only had to wait outside for 45 minutes, tops. a security guard told us that attendees with tickets for certain theaters were going to be let in early and luckily, ours was one of those! we spent the next few hours waiting in the cushy seats with great AC.

i was really disappointed that the Harry Potter trailer wasn’t shown before the movie but here’s what we did see:

• Eat Pray Love
• Paranormal Activity 2
• Charlie St. Cloud (with Zac Efron *swoon*)
• Buried
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• Red

and then the movie started! and if you don’t want to read any spoilers, stop now!

with the previous movies, i lamented the alterations to plot and sequence that Melissa Rosenberg had made but with Eclipse, she really cut out a lot of the minutiae that works well in the book but would not make for interesting viewing for a movie. even if this movie didn’t stick exactly to the book, it captured the essence and feel quite well. regrettably, a couple of key lines from the book were omitted, most notably, “i can’t compete with an eclipse” uttered by Jacob. i also really wanted to see Bella’s anguish after she tells Jacob her final choice but that was left out. i supposed it’s understandable because at one point, my friend Monica wanted to walk out of the movie because Bella is so stupid! one of my favorite lines from the book is when Jacob tells Bella “give it a rest, Bella” because he is tired of her constant and unfounded worry for his safety. Bella is a worry wart and that’s pretty annoying.

a lot of the scenes in Twilight are awash in cold blue; in New Moon they are a warm gold, but in Eclipse, David Slade stuck to a more natural look and i really liked it. that change, coupled with the joyous disposition of the characters pervasive throughout the movie give it a more lighthearted feel than the first two. the humor in this movie also works far better than in that found in Twilight, especially.

my only major complaints are about the use of some of the songs from the soundtrack, which i will analyze in another post, and Bryce Dallas Howard’s performance as Victoria. Bryce played her over the top. the Victoria introduced in Twilight and continued in New Moon was subtle and intense. where Bryce bared her teeth and hissed and yowled, Rachelle would have squinted her eyes and sneered. where Bryce opened her mouth wide to scream in frustration, Rachelle might have simply gritted her teeth. i think maybe Bryce tried too hard to distinguish her performance from Rachelle’s when she could have used what worked from the previous movies. i was just really disappointed with every scene she was in, end of story.

i really hope that i am able to see this movie again in the theater because i was trying to take notes and i might have missed some things!

here’s something to think about: the entire Wolf Pack must be going commando all. the. time.