Is there really any point to reading a review of a “Twilight” movie? Fans will see it no matter what.
Everyone else could care less. Much like other book adaptations like, say, the “Harry Potter” or “The Lord of the Rings” franchises, it’s not the second or third installment that gets you hooked. The first is the clincher.
And so it’s fitting that “Breaking Dawn – Part 1” is fully loaded with as many cheap special effects and unintentionally hilarious melodramatic moments as the very first film and the other two that followed it. It’s like director Bill Condon wants to guarantee us crappy quality, just to keep it consistent.
And for that, the fans will be grateful. There’s a whole spectrum of Twihards — from those who relish the camp factor to others who are sincerely dying for that headboard-breaking scene (forbidden vampire sex!). There’s no reason to believe they won’t all embrace this one for its awe-inspiring strangeness.
Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is again in peril when after her wedding to vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), she finds herself almost instantly pregnant. Since this baby is a special vampire-human hybrid, it’s destroying her from the inside so that eventually, she begins to resemble the Crypt Keeper. Then there’s wolf-shifter Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) who must fend off the rest of his pack, who believe the hybrid baby is a threat to them. Same stuff, different multimillion dollar-earning movie.
There are elements to this story which are too ridiculous to comprehend. There’s a teen-baby love connection, there’s wolves fighting each other in their brains, there’s the fact that these crazy kids have to get married at 18 to begin with. Bella moves out of her dad’s house so that she can move in with her new husband in his family’s house? At least Stephenie Meyer was well ahead of “recession-chic” there.
Lowlights
So-awful-it’s-amazing moments in “Breaking Dawn – Part 1”:
The CGI wolfpack mind-argue over Bella’s weird baby.
Edward’s heartfelt, near-tears description of the night he first has sex with Bella being “the best night of my existence.” Don’t worry, he doesn’t actually call it sex. This is “Twilight,” you remember.
When Jasper solemnly utters the word “probably” — just trust us. At our screening the entire theater was cracking up.
A violent bloody birth scene, the end of which results in one lone streak of blood across a hospital johnny.
