3* Review By James R. Holland                  

What’s All the Fuss About?  

Last night, actually early this morning, young female fans of this Twilight Vampire Series were lined up and eagerly waiting to get into the midnight and later showings of this third movie in this current vampy-wolfy craze. This 124-minute, PG-13 rated woodsy soap opera seemed much longer than two hours. Nothing much seemed to happen. It was like a bunch of 30-year old high school students sitting around talk, talk, talking perfect English without any slang or awkward pauses or "You Knows."

Bella Swan, played by Kristen Stewart, seemed to be endlessly trying to make peace between her two male boyfriends. It seems that Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson, her cold, dead actually, suitor was old-fashioned for a vampire and wanted to marry her before sleeping with her and then turning her into another of the cold ones that would die, but live forever as his vampire mate. His rival and natural enemy was Jacob Black, played well by Taylor Lautner. When he was not in his human form standing around shirtless, which drove the women in the back of the theater crazy, he was a big, warm and cuddly werewolf. These werewolves were all Indian shape-shifters who hated the “cold ones” and would kill them if they crossed through the woods and over the river into their territory and not just at Thanksgiving time.

Enter Victoria played by Bryce Dallas Howard, an evil red-haired vampire, as opposed to the tame and friendly local ones in the town of Forks. She is out to kill Bella and is raising an army of newborn vampires in Seattle to carry out her revenge on the Bella and the clan of vamps in the town of Forks.

Bella is trying to make peace between the tribe of werewolves and the local band of vamps in order that together they can defeat the invaders from the big city. She is able to do this because of her unique position of having both a dead vampire boyfriend as well as a very much alive werewolf boyfriend.

Frankly, the most interesting thing about this movie is the pack of giant werewolves. It was news to me that werewolves and vampires were natural enemies but that’s what the plot said.

The local Forks' vampires were worlds ahead of the big city invaders as far as good looks went. Must be the fresh air? The mostly, 95% female audience in the theater was constantly oohing and ahhing over the locals who apparently didn’t speak with forked tongues, only sucked the blood of the residents of Forks with twin incisors. In a small town like Forks having so many homegrown vampires to feed must have kept the human townies pretty much on edge all the time?

The local female vamps were very pleasant eye candy. Ashley Greene played Alice Cullen; Julia Jones added some exotic looks to the Werewolves as Leah Clearwater. Nikki Reed portrayed Rosalie Hale. Basically all the players on the good werewolf and local vampires' team were either handsome or beautiful.

There was also a group of four called the Volturi who apparently are there to keep the vampires in line and playing by the rules.

Considering the theme of this movie is the battle between the local and city vampires and the werewolves and the all powerful Volturi Big Four, it's amazing that there was almost no blood in the entire film and what there was came from two of the human characters deliberately cutting themselves so that they would bleed a little. I guess that’s logical because when a werewolf bites off the head of vampire, the already dead don’t have blood to spill. Ditto for vampires killing other vampires. No blood. A werewolf’s blood might be hidden by its fur?

This was somewhat of a moral themed film for young people. There were no drugs or premarital sex, just endless talk and introspection on the part of Bella about her decision to marry an undead vampire rather than a very much alive werewolf. My, my these teenagers of the great Northwest have such social problems to deal with. The audience in the theater with me were mostly twenty to thirty year-olds. That makes sense because that’s the age the vamps on screen appeared to be too.

It's no wonder all those rural towns are losing population by the day. It’s tough knowing your classmates might eat you.  And it's equally tough identifying and avoiding vampires if sunlight doesn't bother them.

James R. Holland is a film editor, producer, and author--most recently of Adventure Photographer (A Bit of Boston Books/ 2009).  He reviews movies exclusively for Basil & Spice.  Visit James R. Holland's Writer's Page.

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