Wholly Justified Disbelief Successfully Suspended for 2 Hours

Rating: 7/10 (30 June 2010)

The Twilight Saga [3]: Eclipse (2:04, PG-13, Imax) — Other: Romance; biggie; sequel; OSIT romantics
Suppose you are a young German lad named Riley, and you're returning late one rainy 1937 night from your Hitlerjugend meeting when you're repeatedly bowled over by some unseen entity. You run, but to no avail. Eventually you wake up confronted by a rabbi who informs you that, without even asking you, he's turned you into a Jew and that you're now heir to centuries of tradition. This means that, from now on, you will have to live in a ghetto, you can't go out for a good chunk of the week, your career choices are very limited, you must obey severe dietary restrictions (like no chocolate or dairy products), you'll have to lie to your family and friends about your condition, and you have just acquired a load of obscure obligations. Oh, yeah, and most of your countrymen would regretlessly kill you without a 2nd thot. Your question, Riley, is why you would even think twice about showing this rabbi undying devotion and obedience.
Suppose it's Renaissance Verona and you're a young peasant lass named Bella. You're nice looking but not a raving beauty. You're also possessed of no noticeable smarts, ambition, initiative, talent, wit, passion, athletic ability, sexual desire (let alone skill), connections, wealth, or prospects. You are, however, an acknowledged world-class gold medalist at mooning and pining. You come to the attention of the leading scions of the noble but feuding Houses of Capulet and Montague, and each of them professes to be deeply, truly, eternally in love with you to the point of being willing to die for you and enlist their entire clan in your protection. Your questions, Bella, are (a) why the hell do you want to get mixed up with these obsessive and possibly homicidal maniacs and (b) what in hell do those guys see in YOU?
Suppose you're in a supermarket check-out line and your eyes stray to the "newspapers" on display there. YOUR question is whether any of these people have family names or are you simply expected to recognize every reference that uses only a first name?
Well, none of these questions gets answered in the 3rd Twilight movie, but at least the pace picks up from the draggy 2nd installment enuf for me to move it up a couple of notches to the same score I gave the 1st movie.
Bella (Kristen Stewart) finally shows some initiative other than reluctance. The camera gives us the occasional super-close-up but doesn't just park there. There's less of Edward (Robert Pattinson) twinkling (about which one of my friends commented "that's why they make Clearasil") despite what seems to be more sunshine. And also less of Jacob (Taylor Lautner) taking off his shirt (since it STAYS off for pretty much the entire picture). There are plenty of werewolves (BIG suckers) but almost no transformation scenes. We depart from the central love triangle long enuf to get some interesting history told as flashbacks by the supporting characters. While there's still too much standing around, posing, and pointless chit-chat, nonetheless tension builds believably toward the big battle at the end between the united occult tribes of Forks, Washington, and a platoon of "newborns" — vampires recently created by Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) to avenge herself on Bella for last movie's destruction of her lover James. And, blessedly, there's some humor, such as the double entendre when Jacob informs Edward "I am hotter than you" and the fumbling efforts of dad Charlie (Billy Burke) to have a way belated sex talk with Bella.
More to the point, unlike the similar vampires vs. werewolves theme of the parallel Underworld series, the Twilight saga features characters whom we are invited to care about. It's some measure of the saga's success that we are able to suspend our wholly justified disbelief long enuf to actually do so.
For some unknown reason, as of this morning (June 30), with 3,761 user votes tallied on IMDb, this film got only 3.2 out of 10 stars and is pulling a dead mediocre 50% at RottenTomatoes. C'mon, people, it wasn't THAT bad.