The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2

Directed by Bill Condon

Written by Melissa Rosenberg

Based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer

            I’m sure everybody has heard the vile hatred towards Twilight.  The books, the movies, the actors, the writer.  Everybody involved has been hit with it, and it’s impossible to come into the movie without hearing it.  But surely it’s all an exaggeration.  Surely it’s just this lashing out against the Twilight fandom towards something that’s not nearly as bad as the internet suggests it is.

            This expectation is wrong.  Breaking Dawn Part 2 is an awful, awful, awful, awful movie.

            Now, it should be noted that I came into this without having seen any of the other movies, but I do have a general plot detail of what happens.  I will be leaving out stuff like “I don’t know who this character is”, but fortunately, I saw it with somebody who had read the books and managed to clue me in on stuff I should’ve known and stuff that comes out of nowhere.  I expect that anybody actually seeing this movie of their own  volition will already know the plot up to this point, but let’s do a quick recap of the events at the start: Bella (Kristen Stewart) has married vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson), had a baby, and got turned into a vampire herself so that she would survive the birth.  The plot here is that someone sees the baby and assumes that they turned a child into a vampire, which is illegal.  Thus Bella and Edward gather vampires to fight against the evil Volturi clan.

            And from there, it is close to 2 excruciatingly long hours of nothing.  The worst part is that the major conflict of the movie could be solved with a conversation. “Did you turn this child?” “No.” “Oh, OK then, our bad.”  Apparently the head of the Volturi, Aro (the hamtastic Michael Sheen), even has the power to read all the memories that a person has had, so there’s no doubt there.  It’s basically just preparing for a battle that shouldn’t even need to happen.  A good portion of the movie is either characters standing around and having meaningless conversations, or bringing up plot points which never pay off.  We find out a character has set up a way to get Bella’s daughter out of the country, but it’s unimportant.  Characters with powers are introduced that never get used besides showing us the power, accompanied by a dull explanation by Bella of what the power does, because God knows telling is better than showing.  The characters they bring in to fight against the Volturi get the bare minimum of development.  Some of them have such startling features as “He’s a loner” and “They’re Irish.”  I can slow down if that’s too much for you.  The one saving point among the bunch is Pushing Daisies’ Lee Pace, who still doesn’t get enough development, but it’s Lee Pace so he’s at least acting his heart out.

            The main saving point of the movie is a climactic battle sequence which has cheesy special effects, characters getting their heads ripped off, and it is ridiculous and fun.  It still has as much moments of unintentional comedy as most of the movie does (Edward doing a Superman impression stands out), but it’s at least fun to watch.  What happens after it…well, I don’t want to spoil it.  Needless to say, anybody watching this movie will suddenly feel let down, disappointed, and like they’ve just wasted 2 hours of their life.

            Breaking Dawn Part 2 is like a long hike uphill where there’s nothing to see but you’ve heard there’s a great view at the top.  And you get there and it is a pretty great view.  And then somebody comes and pushes you off the cliff and it turns out there’s a dump right under it.  Certain moments in movies make me want to cry.  Few are because I’ve looked at my watch and realized that there’s still an hour of movie left.