Love just ain't enough

Rating: 5/10 (4 July 2010)

Much better Twilight number three story compared to the disastrous second installment, The New Moon. Story concentrates to describe the newly found love between wolf boy Jacob (Lautner) and human girl Bella (Stewart), her old love to vampire boy Edward (Pattinson), and dealings with vengeful vampire Victoria (Howard) and her new army, together with the all the matters vampires leave behind when crossing over.
Story is much more fluent and active, dialogs slightly improved, acting more or less same. The inserts of new born vampire army together with the back-stories of Cullen vampires Jasper (Rathbone) and Rosalie (Reed) were refreshing reliefs from continuous Bella/Jacob affair. The fighting scene, apparently THE last fight there will be, was well made, albeit short. The vampires were suddenly moving much slower. Editing works and the cinematography is really breath taking. The new wolf pack members had improved CGI bodies, they actually started to look like wolfs; someone has been finally studying animal anatomy. There were still problems with the scaling; the distance and the wolf size didn't change accordingly. Was this why close up of Jacob's hairy tail shows no balls?
It is obvious that Rosenberg tried to update Bella to be more appealing to modern women. In the fight scene, she takes an active role saving Edward from decapitation distracting Victoria and Riley with her blood, in the end of the film she is really not choosing between boys but who she is as a person (they fooled me for awhile), she is the one who figures out who is behind the army, she does not do cooking/laundry to her father anymore, instead Charlie (Burke) is asking if she wants to have a sandwich, she complains Edward being old fashioned (he is from Victorian era) not having sex with her before marriage and she tells Edward she wants to keep her own name when married. Unfortunately, together with the hassling between Jacob/Edward it made the story contradicting itself and left a desperate aftertaste. Too much effort was made to play in all camps.
If you think this story has been about love, in the end of this movie you are told otherwise. A lot of effort is put to bring Jacob forward as a worthy suitor; long stares and dialogs, love confessions, choose me moments and a neon highlighting to underline the fact that it is possible to love more than one person at the time. On the way he tries to prove this by forcing himself on her and wishing Bella really would better dead than one of the vampires, and finally joining forces with Cullens to protect her. Eventually all culminates to a long-long-long ultimate kiss at the top of the snowy mountain, camera rolling around them in different angles. The fact that the recent fiancé Edward, to whom Bella is engaged to be married, is watching this all is not allowed to bring any consequences, the concepts of infidelity and betrayal are not even mentioned. Bella is actively seeking Jacob's company throughout the movie and hiding the engagement ring, pointing out her feelings for him; every character in the movie is made to play a role to emphasize this. Even the scene where Jacob is crushed by a new born is moved later in the story so that Bella can go to him, and even though the Cullen's are standing right beside they are still last to arrive to his rescue.
Jacobs's value as a right choice is like secretly added by showing scenes throughout the movie of what Bella would be leaving behind as a vampire. Bella's mother (Clarke) is giving a trip-T-shirt blanket hoping future and children for her, Jessica's (Kendrick) graduation speech of value of mistakes and possibilities to change one's mind, father Charlie telling he would look for her forever if she ever goes missing, Rosalie's story and her wish of still having a possibility to grow old and being surrounded by grandchildren, and Edward's pain of condemning her to go through all that sacrifice because of him.
Explanation/s why Jacob would be just a right for Bella is actually quite well done, too well in the end. After all this one has to wonder why the vampire boy is still around? This is explained in two last scenes, in case viewer is confused. In the dialogs between Jacob and Bella, Jacob complains how difficult it was to make Bella confess her feelings for him. Bella answers she only fought against it because it wouldn't change anything (so why she led him on all two movies if she knew this all along?). Laconically Jacob states "if love would only be enough" (= if it would be enough Bella would have chosen Jacob) and hints he would be waiting for her even after her heart stops beating. Was this leaving the door open to be continued? In the last scene Bella is making a monologue to verbalize the point of all this to Edward: "This wasn't a choice between you and Jacob. It was a choice who I should be and who I am". After this is explanation how she feels outsider as a human/body and how she is more herself in a world of vampires. To this Edward asks "so this wasn't about me", and Bella "sorry, no". So, Bella wants to be a vampire, therefore she will be with Edward, and Edward is to be her trophy husband. In the end Bella has all the choices, and a right to love multiple persons. Edward is left alone with Bella, and Jacob is doomed to imprint.
Love really ain't enough, not even in the world of fantasy. Girl has to eat, and sometimes girl wants to eat some blood.