THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE 2010, dir. David Slade 124 min., Rated PG-13. Starring: Billy Burke, Kristen Stewart, Cedric Diggory, Taylor Lautner, Lady In the Water Review by Baldy

Leave your balls at home.

If you’re a woman, or if you’re a man and you want more than that (for whatever weird reason), here we go.

In real life, I’m an honest-to-goodness film critic/reviewer. That means that I get asked to review all kinds of interesting things before they come out. Sometimes that means I get to see cool stuff like Jonah Hex. Other times, it means . . . this. For them, I have to couch my responses for the average folks. For here, unless this is the first review you’ve ever read on this site, you understand that I can say whatever the hell I think needs to be said. I admit that I read the books, but that was because I was married and it seemed like a good way to score some points. What can I say? I accepted this because I thought my plus-one would dig it.

First thing to notice is the crowd. Wow. The entire spectrum was there, from the scarily-obsessed girls to the really hot moms to the creepy Waffle House waitress-types wearing (regrettably) skin tight shirts that read “I love sparkly boys.” Yeah. My kinda crowd. I got the feeling that if I were to mention my affinity for The Hunger or the Lost Boys I would have been torn limb from limb. With THIS group, one does not mention the fact that there are far better vampire movies out there (or that all other vampire movies out there are better, for that matter).

Bella’s a human (hormonal, teenaged, female stalker) who is obsessed with vampire Edward Cullen. Werewolf Jacob (“six minute abs”) is in love with Bella. Bella wants to be a vamp and doesn’t give a shit about anything or anyone else, regardless of who gets hurt. Selfish little bitch wants what she wants and who cares about anyone else? That’s the gist of it. Well, that and the teenager’s tough choice between bestiality and necrophilia. Normal stuff.

Why go? ‘Cause your girl probably likes it unless you were smart and selective in the “choosing a chick” process. If not, you can go either to underscore the greatness of other vampire films or to laugh your ass off.

Why not go? Ummm, wow. Okay. There are no fewer than FOUR scenes in which Bella and vampire Edward are lying in a field of fucking flowers discussing their feelings. There is a scene in a tent in which Edward and Jacob spend five minutes discussing their feelings about Bella instead of trying to tear each other’s limbs off, as normal guys would do. If you have young kids, do you really want to take your eight year-old to a film in which you see limbs torn off and in which the heroine blatantly BEGS the leading corpse for sex? Not really safe for the target audience, if you ask me. The next one’s going to be far worse (full-on vampire sex, creepy Alia-like vampire babies, imprinting on infants, that kind of thing).

The really observant might notice that I listed Billy Burke first among the stars. You know why? He is easily the most likeable, believeable, selfless character in the whole stinking thing. He’s what more dads ought to be. As Bella’s father, he’s not perfect but he busts his ass and does his best. The rest of the cast can take a hike. THIS guy is an actor.

If you want a romance with action, get the Princess Bride or Stardust. If you want werewolves versus vampires, get one of the Underworld films. If you want to see a dead Robert Pattinson, see Harry Potter. On the other hand, if you want a childishly-done cinematic farce that plays to the basest of teenaged girl emotions without one iota of real storytelling to back it up. . . you should still see something else.

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