The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

I firmly believe in walking into every movie I see with an open mind. And so, I walked into Breaking Dawn Part 1 in the highest of spirits. The weekend was just starting, it's a holiday next week, which means a short work week, and I was at the movies, one of my favorite places of all to be. I took my seat, and as the film started, I tried to hold onto that good mood, hoping it would keep me positive. I would love to give a Twilight film a good review for once. Alas, it was not to be.

I tried, dear reader. Oh, how I tried. I tried to get involved in the love story between 18-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and her vampire lover, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), as they prepared to walk down the aisle and begin their lives together. But I cannot see the appeal of such a shallow couple, and why millions of women around the world find theirs to be one of the great love stories. I most likely never will understand. But, for those of you who are the faithful of this franchise, this is the movie I assume you've been waiting for. Bella and Edward finally say "I do", they have sex for the first time (off camera, of course, as this is a PG-13 movie), and Bella becomes pregnant with a half-human/half-vampire child. This leads to one of the bloodiest childbirth scenes in cinema history, and also makes me question, why is it not okay to show people making love in a PG-13 film, but it is okay to show Bella's spine literally twist and snap in labor, with blood strewn about the bed?

Bella's best friend, Jacob (Taylor Lautner), is back as well. If you recall, he's the guy who can turn into a wolf simply by running, and tearing off his shirt. I noticed something odd, however. Whenever he's about to turn into a wolf, he rips his shirt off, yet leaves his pants on. And yet, as soon as he assumes his wolf form, the pants simply disappear. I don't recall seeing them fly off him during the transformation sequence. They're just simply not there anymore. Anyway, Jacob's role in the story is to stand around and pout over the fact that Bella has chosen to marry Edward over him. He stands outside their house a lot, looking tortured and pained. Or, at least the closest to tortured and pained that Lautner can put across in his traditionally wooden performance. He vows to protect Bella when she becomes pregnant, but doesn't end up doing a whole lot.

The main plot involves Jacob's wolf pack wanting to kill Bella before she can give birth to her child, while Edward and Jacob try to protect her. What this ultimately boils down to is a lot of scenes of the main heroes pacing around inside the house, wondering what to do about Bella, while the wolves pace around outside the house under the cover of trees. Breaking Dawn seems to be stuck in permanent slow motion. The wedding preparations go on forever, the wedding itself seems endless, and the honeymoon is a long, pointless collection of scenes that consist of music montages, playing a lot of chess, and Edward and Bella staring off into space. And just when the plot looks like it's picking up, the movie ends up being simply nothing but the characters standing around and talking. Nearly nothing happens during the film's two hour running time, so by the time the movie ends on a cliffhanger, I really didn't care anymore.

There's a lot of sulking, a lot of pouting, some cornball romantic dialogue to tie everything together, an uninspired fight scene between the vampires and the wolves that is so incompetently shot, it often looks like a tangled mess of human actors and flashes of CG fur, and then it ends. I can't think of another movie this year that's ended up being a bigger non-event. So, is it all a total waste? Not completely. There were two moments that made me smile. One was when Bella's dad (Billy Burke) gave a very funny speech during their wedding, and the other is when we see the aftermath of Edward and Bella's lovemaking, which results in the girl waking up in the middle of a bed that's been mangled and smashed by her vampire lover's strength and passion. It's one of the few moments when the characters are allowed to smile, or at least show an emotion other than blank indifference.

As the Twilight series winds down, I realize I've come to the conclusion that the franchise was not for me from the beginning. But, why are so many enthralled with such a soulless love story? I ask, only to see that I am not missing something. After four movies (with one more to go), I find that I know about as much about these characters as I did walking into the first movie.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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