'Twilight: Eclipse' reviewed by Ryan Michaels

Hey, I'm Ryan Michaels, a 13-year-old writing movie reviews for Heritage Newspapers. I've been doing it for two years, and enjoy it a lot. Here's my review of "Twilight."

"Twilight" was not made for me, I know that. It was not made with the thoughts or feelings of non-"Twihard" males in mind.

And, you know what? I'm totally fine with that.

Some 95 percent of all large movie franchises are geared toward guys, so to see a franchise made with females in mind is actually something of a breath of fresh air.

That said, the first two "Twilight" films were nothing to write home about. "New Moon," in particular, was pretty horrible. My main complaint with those two films is that you never got a sense of why exactly Bella and Edward are so completely in love, or never really got a sense of any of the characters' motivations at all.

So although I didn't expect (or want) "Twilight Saga: Eclipse" to be horrible, my hopes were admittedly not all that high for it, which makes me somewhat happy to say: "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" (henceforth referred to as merely 'Eclipse') is actually pretty entertaining, and is at the very least much better the first two installments in the franchise.

First off, the performances are much improved from the first two. Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner are much less awkward here than they were in the first two, bringing more charisma and depth to their roles, which ultimately elevates the film as a whole.

The film is a better blend of genres and elements than the first two. In "Twilight" and "New Moon," it was mainly romance with half-hearted attempts at humor. Here, the primary element remains romance, but the incorporation of action and humor feels much more natural and just works very well in the film.

These things aside, there are a fair amount of problems I had with "Eclipse." First off, a lot of the side characters' performances were very weak. Most of the side cast give very wooden performances, and are, simply put, boring to watch.

A lot of the dialogue is incredibly bad. A few lines, in particular, had me laughing out loud. And, as I said earlier, my main gripe with "Twilight" and "New Moon" was that the characters' motivations were often incredibly vague and were never really explained. Unfortunately, that same complaint holds true for "Eclipse," as well.

So overall, "Eclipse" was made for Twilight fans, and those fans will eat it up. Yet speaking as someone who isn't the biggest fan of the "Twilight" franchise, I was fairly riveted and entertained during "Eclipse." Bravo, Edward.

I give it three out of four stars.

Film critic Ryan Michaels, a student at Emerson School in Ann Arbor and two-time winner of the Michigan Press Association Better Newspaper Contest for his reviews, can be reached through mrogers@heritage.com.