Movie review: ‘The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1’

By Bob Garver

Since 2008, the “Twi­light” movies have been one of my favorite annual tra­di­tions. Not because of the movies them­selves, which are drippy romances with end­less lovelorn dia­logue, but because of the reac­tions of the audi­ences that accom­pany the films. The camera’s obses­sion with the actors’ looks is painful. Hun­dreds of girls’ obses­sion with the actors’ looks is hilar­i­ous. There is no sound in the world quite like a sold-out audi­to­rium squeal­ing over the sight of Robert Pattinson’s face or Tay­lor Lautner’s abs. The sto­ry­lines and dia­logue are down­right laugh­able, but it’s such a gen­uine laugh­ter that it turns out to be a pos­i­tive reac­tion. Thus, I leave the films feel­ing positive.

This chap­ter sees human Bella Swan (Kris­ten Stew­art) finally marry her vam­pire boyfriend Edward Cullen (Pat­tin­son). The wed­ding is a per­fect embod­i­ment of every­thing fans love about the series, from the awk­ward inter­ac­tion between humans and vam­pires to the eerily beau­ti­ful wood­land set­ting to the heaps and heaps of love. Then it’s off to the hon­ey­moon on Edward’s pri­vate island off the coast of Brazil. Of course the dreamy vam­pire with diamond-coated skin has a pri­vate island with its own villa. But I ques­tion his choice of Brazil. The series to this point has mostly taken place in cold, rainy Wash­ing­ton. The dis­rup­tion, even for an occa­sion such as a hon­ey­moon, seems out of place. I guess I’m just con­di­tioned to expect Edward to hate sun­light, even though I don’t remem­ber if vam­pires hate sun­light in this series or not.

The hon­ey­moon is as pas­sion­ate as fans could hope for. The romance becomes so intense at one point that every piece of fur­ni­ture in the bed­room gets bro­ken. Bella is bruised in the course of the action, which draws imme­di­ate con­cern from Edward. She laughs it off as col­lat­eral dam­age and insists that he isn’t really doing any­thing wrong. She wants him to keep doing it. Pro­po­nents of the the­ory that the “Twi­light” series is too easy on those who com­mit domes­tic abuse have a lot of fuel for their argu­ment here. Also, Bella quickly becomes pregnant.

The preg­nancy presents an imme­di­ate dilemma. Human women are not meant to carry vam­pire fetuses, they’re too dan­ger­ous. Most of the Cullen fam­ily insists that the baby will kill Bella, and she needs to have it removed pre­ma­turely in order to save her life. Bella will hear none of it and demands to see the preg­nancy through to the end. This puts Edward and his fam­ily in dan­ger as well. Vam­pires have a peace treaty with their were­wolf ene­mies which is voided if a vam­pire kills a human. If Bella were to die as a result of the preg­nancy, the truce would be bro­ken and the clans would be at war.

Edward looks to an unlikely source for help. Jacob (Laut­ner) is Bella’s jilted for­mer lover, a were­wolf who hates vam­pires and would love a war. But Edward knows that Jacob still has love for Bella and will do what­ever it takes to see that noth­ing bad hap­pens to her. He is first enlisted to try and talk sense into Bella and the other were­wolves, he even­tu­ally plays a major part in pro­tect­ing Bella, the Cul­lens, and the baby.

The final moments of the film are much more intense than any­thing I expected, prov­ing once again that the dan­ger of vam­pires and were­wolves is noth­ing com­pared to child­birth. I have to hand it to direc­tor Bill Con­don for putting a sur­pris­ing amount of edgi­ness into these scenes. At a cer­tain point the film is no longer iron­i­cally deli­cious, it’s legit­i­mately pow­er­ful. What we have with “Break­ing Dawn Part 1” is a “Twi­light” movie that can be enjoyed on the usual silly lev­els while qui­etly turn­ing out to be halfway decent otherwise.

The Movie: Two and a Half Stars out of Five.

The Crowd, as always: Five Stars out of Five.

“The Twi­light Saga: Break­ing Dawn Part 1” is rated PG-13 for dis­turb­ing images, vio­lence, sexuality/partial nudity, and the­matic ele­ments. Its run­ning time is 117 minutes.

Posted by Bob Garver on Nov 25 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.