MyRating: YYDirector: David Slade
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Xavier Samuel, Jackson Rathbone, Peter Facinelli, Ashley Greene, Anna Kendrick, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Bryce Dallas Howard, Dakota Fanning
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, and some sensuality
The love triangle between the human, the vampire and the werewolf is back. It's the third installment of The Twilight Saga based on the best selling romantic-vampire novel by Stephenie Meyer. The series (of 4 novels) has been phenomenally successful and popular around the globe, as it has sold over 100 million books worlwide. The movie franchise itself has gained an immensely box office success with more than US$ 1.1 Billion revenue worldwide for the first two movies, Twilight with US$ 392 Million in 2008 and New Moon with US$ 709 Million in 2009 (just compare it with the production budgets of US$ 37 Million and US$ 50 Million, respectively). With this third movie and the coming fourth ones, Breaking Dawn, which will be divided into 2 movies, more money will surely flow into the producer's pocket, Summit Entertainment. It's amazing, right, to see how fast (and easy) this series of novels and movies making money?
It's all about protecting Bella! Bella Swan (Stewart) once again finds herself in the middle of a dangerous situation, whereas an army of newborn vampires does a series of vicious killings, which at the end, they are aiming for Bella as their main target. But the lucky Bella has Edward Cullen (Pattinson), the vampire and her lover, and Jacob Black (Lautner), the werewolf and her bestfriend, on her side to protect her. And as they both love the same girl, the rivalry between Edward and Jacob continues. While Bella's decision to let herself to be turned into a vampire after her coming graduation and to marry Edward, makes the tension between the two men becoming even worse, and Jacob has to convince Bella before she makes the biggest mistake of her life. But they must first put aside all their animosities, to work together hand in hand, the Cullen families and the werewolf clan, to face their impending enemies that are in front of them.
After watching this third movie, I finally got a clear confirmation that this saga was actually did not work for me. Yes, it was much better than New Moon, slightly better story, better direction, and it has more actions, especially at the end of the movie, with the fights between the Cullen family, the werewolves and the newborn vampire army. But it still bored me, as the storytelling was too slow for me. The story was only revolving around the love relationship between Bella and Edward, plus Jacob. That is the main story of this saga, anyway. It was romantic, as there were abundant of kissing scenes between Bella and Edward, and also between Bella and Jacob. However, the romanticism also did not work for me (actually it didn't work for me since the first movie, as I found it awkward). I know it works for teenagers and most women, but I doubt it will really work for men. And the actions in this movie? They were interesting, but not that great either. But, I could not imagine this movie without those actions, it will become just as bore and plain as New Moon.
This is already a very big saga, if we measure it by its box office success. It always has big hype everytime the new installment was being released. But I have to say, this is one of the saga that does not have that good of a content. The premise of the love relationship between a human and a vampire is fine, but I don't think it was successfully executed into a good script and interesting plot. But again, this saga still makes a lot of money. It shows how huge of fan base this saga has, including the core fans of the novels.
Honestly speaking, I never got through the middle of the first Twilight novel myself. Have tried it several time, but the way the story being told did not keep me interested to continue the book (again this is not about the premise, but on how Stephenie Meyer wrote the story, I just don't think it has a good storytelling). If you ask me, what kind of novel that I like and consider as a good storytelling, then I will give one example of the contemporary fantasy novel, which is Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass). Those are the novels that I consider as a great writing and a great read. Brilliant novels, indeed. But I do admire Meyer for her huge success, especially she is still young. That is one of the most important things for a writer, which is to become famous, a success that other writers would envy. You can always improve your storytelling skills all the way while you are (already) famous, however it's very hard for a writer to become widely known at the first place. And Meyer seems to have reached that easily, while many other writers have to struggle their way to even get noticed. But again, salute to Meyer. (MJ)
