Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene, Billy Burke
Director: Bill Condon
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Rating: C+
These movies somehow seem to just get more and more ridiculous with each passing film. The thing that I really like about The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 is that it does away with the ridiculous melodrama of the love triangle and introduces new ridiculous melodrama. The new melodrama is still really rather lame, but it's such a relief to be done with the love triangle bullshit.
Breaking Dawn opens with the prelude to the wedding of the human Bella Swan (Stewart) and her vampire lover Edward Cullen (Pattinson). Werewolf, best friend, and former would-be-lover Jacob Black (Lautner) is very upset about this and laments the impending loss of Bella's humanity - and is outright pissed off when he realizes that Bella and Edward intend to go on their honeymoon before Bella is turned. This honeymoon plan turns to be rather screwy for them all, as during it Bella gets pregnant with Edward's baby. The rest of this movie then deals with the vampires and werewolves each dealing with the consequences of this impending birth.
Soo, yeah. Ridiculous melodrama. But somehow it's funny ridiculous melodrama. Once again, the cast seems to know that the basic concept of this movie is silly and they just go with it. Once again, I'm going to say that they're all better actors than people give them credit for for not laughing half the time in this movie. Especially the scene where Bella discovers she's pregnant. The fact that they were able to play that straight makes them far better actors than we like to give them credit for.
The real strong part of this movie is the fact that it moves on from the love triangle while maintaining that continuity. Jacob is still in love with Bella and he still makes it clear that he loves her and he will always protect her, but he is no longer trying to win her. He knows he's lost and he's accepting that, or at least trying to. There's no more Bella being annoyed with him for hitting on her, or struggling to make a decision between him and Edward. There's also the fact that Edward seems to have truly accepted Jacob as a part of Bella's, and by extension his, life. I kind of felt like this whole plot lasted at least a movie longer than it needed to, so I was happy to be done with it.
The weak point in this movie is how they tried to draw suspense out of things that I don't think were really all that suspenseful. There is suspense in this movie - especially pertaining to the likelihood of Bella's survival and what this child is going to be like - but what they try to make suspenseful isn't. Like whether or not drinking blood is going to be helpful to Bella. Not suspenseful, don't cue the drawn out sequences and music. You know what was suspenseful? The way the movie ends - at least until you see the trailer for the next film. That kind of killed that.
These movies somehow seem to just get more and more ridiculous with each passing film. The thing that I really like about The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 is that it does away with the ridiculous melodrama of the love triangle and introduces new ridiculous melodrama. The new melodrama is still really rather lame, but it's such a relief to be done with the love triangle bullshit.
Breaking Dawn opens with the prelude to the wedding of the human Bella Swan (Stewart) and her vampire lover Edward Cullen (Pattinson). Werewolf, best friend, and former would-be-lover Jacob Black (Lautner) is very upset about this and laments the impending loss of Bella's humanity - and is outright pissed off when he realizes that Bella and Edward intend to go on their honeymoon before Bella is turned. This honeymoon plan turns to be rather screwy for them all, as during it Bella gets pregnant with Edward's baby. The rest of this movie then deals with the vampires and werewolves each dealing with the consequences of this impending birth.
Soo, yeah. Ridiculous melodrama. But somehow it's funny ridiculous melodrama. Once again, the cast seems to know that the basic concept of this movie is silly and they just go with it. Once again, I'm going to say that they're all better actors than people give them credit for for not laughing half the time in this movie. Especially the scene where Bella discovers she's pregnant. The fact that they were able to play that straight makes them far better actors than we like to give them credit for.
The real strong part of this movie is the fact that it moves on from the love triangle while maintaining that continuity. Jacob is still in love with Bella and he still makes it clear that he loves her and he will always protect her, but he is no longer trying to win her. He knows he's lost and he's accepting that, or at least trying to. There's no more Bella being annoyed with him for hitting on her, or struggling to make a decision between him and Edward. There's also the fact that Edward seems to have truly accepted Jacob as a part of Bella's, and by extension his, life. I kind of felt like this whole plot lasted at least a movie longer than it needed to, so I was happy to be done with it.
The weak point in this movie is how they tried to draw suspense out of things that I don't think were really all that suspenseful. There is suspense in this movie - especially pertaining to the likelihood of Bella's survival and what this child is going to be like - but what they try to make suspenseful isn't. Like whether or not drinking blood is going to be helpful to Bella. Not suspenseful, don't cue the drawn out sequences and music. You know what was suspenseful? The way the movie ends - at least until you see the trailer for the next film. That kind of killed that.
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