With the third film Eclipse, director David Slade doesn't just bring a much-needed dose of humor to the glum franchise, but cranks up the action to the point that some sections could be considered genuinely exciting. Much of the film is still a slog, of course, and atrocious dialogue and wooden acting abound, but Eclipse is the first Twilight film that works at all on its own, giving us better characters, tense action sequences, and a wry acknowledgement that, yes, this is maybe all a little bit silly.
The wink-wink nods to Twilight mania are pretty brief-- Edward (Pattinson) asks if Jacob (Taylor Lautner) even owns a shirt, Jacob later counters by telling Edward "Admit it, I'm hotter than you"-- and are balanced nicely by some of the first genuine human interactions between the characters. It's amazing that it took us this long to see Edward and Bella (Stewart) smile at each other, or to watch Bella's dad Charlie (Billy Burke) cope, in a very realistic Dad way, with his daughter's all-consuming new relationship. Little moments like these ground the film in a way neither of the first two managed, and while they don't exactly make you care about the characters-- they're all far too thinly drawn and ridiculous for that-- they at least make them a lot more tolerable this time around.
