The Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011)

Let the carnal delights begin! The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 is supposedly the reward for all of our suffering. Twihards have endured three movies worth of smouldering glances, angsty shirtlessness and reluctant abstinence with only the knowledge of the final instalments’ cathartic release to keep them going. Meanwhile, the haters who have had to endure the previous pictures due to boyfriendly/girlfriendly/film-critically duties were able to take solace in the fact the adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s last Twilight book would be full of freaktastic treats.

This was to be the movie in which the relentlessly-uninteresting franchise finally embraced its dark, twisted side. We would get our first real glimpse of the orgasmic highs and blood-stained lows of Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella’s (Kristen Stewart) affair. For once, we would learn the true curse of the vampyr is not limited to mild sparkling and stilted line readings. Sadly, those promises have gone unfulfilled. Breaking Dawn Part 1 is just as tepid as its predecessors. The picture sidesteps all opportunities to depict the novel’s nuttiness (including intense virginity-loss, admissions of murder, a toothy caesarean section and a grown man falling in love with a baby) in an intriguing manner and sands down all the edges to leave us with yet another generic melodrama, in which not a single moment rings true. At least it loses a lot of the troubling subtext from earlier flicks, and replaces it with good ol' inoffensive nothingness (though your definition of 'inoffensive' may depend on how you feel about scenes in which an 18-year-old girl begs for sex from her hundred-year-plus husband).

The audience is cordially invited to the wedding of immortal vampire Edward Cullen and his human teenage girlfriend Bella Swan. It’s the social event of the supernatural calendar, and we get to admire every minute detail; from the dress, to the vows, to the cake, to the speeches and so on and so on. It’s like watching a lengthy photo slideshow made by relatives about their “special day”, except they’re not your relatives, and also you hate them (the Cullen clan make me feel quite uncomfortable). The newlyweds are then whisked away to an island off the coast of Brazil where they can finally consummate their marriage. And consummate they do! Bloodsucker Edward is a little too rough for the still mortal and very frail Bella though; he doesn’t want to risk hurting her again, so the metaphorical chastity belt is quickly re-attached. It may be too late. Somehow, the undead dude managed to get his child bride up the duff, and now a fast-growing human-vamp hybrid is threatening to kill its weak mommy. Her only chance for survival is an ironic one; she may need to become a vamp herself, much to the chagrin of her former love/current lycanthrope Jacob (Taylor Lautner).

Despite the Oscar-nominated chops of director Bill Condon, he can’t keep proceedings from feeling stagey (Breaking Dawn even feels stagier than his Dreamgirls… which largely took place on a stage). Without having read the books - I'm only aware of this tale's breathless insanity via Wikipedia - I don’t know whether to blame the awful dialogue on Meyer or dutiful screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg. Either way, yikes. The action sequences (of which there are mercifully few) are clumsily composed and feel like a lazy attempt to cram conflict into a film that is almost plot-free. That being said, it’s not the worst instalment of the saga (faint praise), and we get the best work from Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner yet (also faint praise). They’re only good scene-to-scene, but at least that’s something. Billy Burke also deserves credit for being reliably great as Mr. Swan. Still, the potential of Part 2 seems minimal. If Condon and co. couldn’t combine elements of The Fly and Rosemary’s Baby into a sexy, scary or super-weird concoction, we may as well consider the other, ‘boring’ half of Breaking Dawn dead in the water.

2/5

Check out Simon’s other reviews here.