The phenomenon known as The Twilight Saga has finally seemed to catch on its rails. Plagued by over stylized direction and a meager budget in its debut film and watered down blaze attempt in its sequel, this series has found the perfect visionary to express the spirit of this popular series, David Slade (30 Days of Night). His balance of beautiful visuals and realism lends itself to this third film in a refreshing manner. Finally the saga has a film that is both welcoming to newcomers and respectable enough that fans won’t be embarrassed to call a favorite.
Slade’s history with other vampire stories and working in the music video industry helped his understanding of how to make this film visually spot-on. The vampires finally look correct and less like sparkle disco queens and the wolves are visually stunning. Although great with visuals, Slade’s ability work with actors is also impressive.
After working together in three films, the cast has finally worked out any glitches in their chemistry, becoming a cohesive group. Kristen Stewart’s Bella gains more stability when dealing with the supernatural struggle involving her heart. She portrays this to the best of her ability, which is quite vast. Robert Pattinson’s performance seems to be the most consistent. Not straying far at all from how he played Edward in the previous films, he holds the films together with his stalwart performance. Any failure in regards to believability is not any fault of actors but flaws in Melissa Rosenberg’s screenplay.
Must like her last two screenplays in this saga, her stories have been written for fans of the original novels. Leaving those whom have not enjoyed the series in written form are left looking at their more literate friends to fill in the blanks. As far as adaptations go, many will feel like things are missing and others will be so lost in the visual and auditory elements of the movie that they won’t even notice any changes. And by visual elements, implications towards shirtless Taylor Lautner running around are evident.
Speaking of Jacob, Team Teen Wolf steals the show in this film. Getting all the woots and hollers, it makes you wonder how disappointed the audience would really be if they gave them what they really wanted, and not stayed true to the books. This film series has such a devoted following that they would almost need to makes some changes to give the diehard fans something to talk about.
People are watching these films with such a close microscope that their bound to piss a lot of people off. Instead the future films should do the opposite. Shock the audience, change the ending and give them a new experience they didn’t receive in the novels.
Without a doubt The Twilight Saga has taken over America but it’s finally getting the treatment that a series of this scale deserves. Without a doubt this is the best Twilight film yet.
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence and some sensuality.
