The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Breaks the Bonds of Logic

Written by: Kristen Lopez, Editor in Chief

To get it out of the way, the Twilight films are utter crap that make young girls believe all they need to do is lay out in a field, hold hands with a guy and all their dreams will come true. This is established and doesn’t need to be brought up (I’ll try to hold back). The problem lies in the future, what happens now that our two star-crossed lovers are together forever? According to The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part One now they get to have a blessed bundle of joy…that will probably kill the girl. From the continued weak acting, a bloated runtime, and some laughably horrendous moments, Breaking Dawn tries hard to be more adult and falls flat.

Vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) and his human love Bella (Kristen Stewart) are finally married! Unfortunately, Bella still has to cope with leaving her family and life behind to become a vampire. Things are further complicated when Bella discovers she’s pregnant, not only putting her life in danger but breaking the truce between the vampires and werewolves including friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner).

Despite the plot, acting, and general ridiculousness of the film it certainly looked pretty. Director Bill Condon, a man whose work I’ve admired, made the film look gorgeous. The dream sequences, the way the characters are shot, make this one of the more beautiful Twilight films, especially in contrast to David Slade’s dark tone in Eclipse.

Unfortunately, the movie is as bland and lifeless (pun not intended I swear) as the previous installments. I was able to sit back and not look at my watch but only in the sense of watching a slow moving train wreck. A longer essay can be written on some of the more controversial elements that are beat over the heads of the audience (mostly in terms of Bella keeping her baby or not), but it just didn’t seem to lead up to anything. The plot really had no momentum with about 30 minutes devoted to the wedding, ten to the honeymoon (two to the sex scene), a lot devoted to Jacob and his problems with the wolves before ending with the baby. It just seemed hodgepodge, a problem attributed to screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg and her staunch following of the novels. Had these films been gutsy enough to diverge from the books a little bit, it might have paced better.

The film also seems like its split in two with appearances and presentations of characters that are just used to say “hey they’ll be in the next movie.” Actors like Maggie Grace and Mia Maestro are introduced then disappear. I haven’t read the book so it just seemed like thankless cameos but supposedly they’ll have bigger roles in the next movie. That’s great but to the uninitiated it looks like we’re presenting cool people the director is friends with. That seems to be the main theme of this movie, presenting elements that will ultimately pay off in the last film making this one seem even more of a pointless stepping stone.

That leads to the main cast themselves who are apparently set in their characters by this point. What I enjoyed about the last film was the showcasing of back-story for the minor characters. That’s all removed and we learn nothing about these characters, they’re left forever as two dimensional people we’re meant to deal with. With that the cast is just as monotone and boring as they once were. Stewart spends the majority of the film begging for sex and dying from the inside out. Pattinson looks pained while Lautner continues to attempt his James Dean swagger and failing miserably. The rest of the cast fades to the back only coming out when they’re needed. The wolves seem to get more development, namely Seth (Booboo Stewart) and Leah (Julia Jones) but they’re pretty much Jacob’s lackeys.

There’s really nothing more to be said about the movie. It’s bad, it’s as bad as the others, only this time it had sex in it. I could get into the grander themes the film tries to present but it’s unnecessary. If you’re a Twilight fan nothing I say can change your mind and if you’ve already cast off the series similar sentiments to you. All I can say is its two hours I’ll never get back.

Final Grade: