The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

 

After four years, The Twilight Saga ends not with a bang, not with a whimper, but rather with a shrug.  I just don't get it.  How can anything be such a total non-event, and still become a pop culture phenomenon?  How did millions of readers, and later movie goers, get duped into thinking this was a story worth caring about?  How much contempt do you have to hold for your audience to end your story the way this movie ends the long-running story of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson)?  As much as I have been immune to the "charms" of this franchise, never in my nightmares could I have anticipated an ending this pathetic.

I want to just throw manners out the window, and rip this entire film series to pieces.  I want to just stop talking about this movie, and dive into a fevered rant expressing my hatred for it, much the way Roger Ebert famously did when he reviewed North.  I want to scream, I want to yell, I want to do something...But I don't think anything I could think of could accurately portray just how mind-numbingly boring and uneventful this movie is.  It's literally a 90 minute build up to something that doesn't even happen.  Yes, you read that right.  The film's ad campaign would like you to think that you're in for some kind of epic conclusion to the story.  Don't believe the lies.  Somehow, the filmmakers have managed to come up with a worse conclusion than one of those endings where somebody wakes up, and we realize the whole movie we just watched was a dream.  This movie is a cash-grab, and a flat-out con job.  Even the studio's decision to release this film in two separate parts smacks of corporate greed, rather than needing more time to tell the story.

Yes, Breaking Dawn was originally one whole story when it was published as a book.  But then, the studio execs saw how much money Warner Bros. made by dividing the last Harry Potter book into two separate movies.  In defense of Potter, that decision made some sort of sense.  The Deathly Hollows was a massive book, and squeezing it into one movie would have been a mistake.  Here, there is nothing to suggest that the events in the last two Twilight films could not have fit into just one movie.  Heck, just edit out the multiple parts where characters stand silently, staring at each other or off into space, and you'd probably shave off a good chunk of its running time.  This entire movie serves mainly as build up, anyway.  There are no revelations about the characters, and nothing that we needed an entire movie to cover.  It's all one big lead up to the biggest anticlimax in motion picture history.

So, we pick up where Breaking Dawn Part 1 left off.  Bella's now one of the undead, and thinks it's pretty cool, since it gives her super strength, and allows her to run at the speeds of the Road Runner from the old Looney Tunes shorts.  And, thanks to the film's unconvincing CG and special effects, she looks about as realistic as a cartoon character whenever she's showing off her feats of strength and speed.  She demonstrates her new vampire powers for a good half hour or so, all the while droning away in a monotonous narration where she talks about how happy she is to be a vampire.  She's now married to Edward, and has even given birth to a half human-half vampire baby girl.  Alas, domestic blood sucking bliss does not seem to be in the cards for our lovers.  Their child is growing at an alarming rate, suggesting that she may die after only a few years.  There's also the lovelorn werewolf, Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who hangs around while not really contributing much.  But worst of all, the Volturi (a kind of vampire council) is coming to destroy Bella and Edward's child, because they fear it may be an abomination against nature.

Edward and his vampire clan must round up supporters to convince the Volturi that the kid is not evil, or unnatural.  This takes up a majority of the film.  The vampires from around the world gather, show off their powers, and then stand around, talking about how they will convince the Volturi not to kill the child.  If you think you can stomach 90 minutes of this, then by all means, subject yourself to this movie immediately.  I'm sure that the fans who have breathlessly followed this franchise all this time will find something interesting here.  Anyone who hasn't hopped aboard the fandom train, or picked a side in the "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" debate will probably be struggling to stay awake, as I was.  There's a promise of an epic battle that will determine everything, but...Well, you'll see what happens should you be unwise enough to find yourself in an audience watching this movie.

Breaking Dawn Part 2 accomplishes nothing.  It does not give us any exciting last minute revelations, it doesn't challenge everything the characters know or thought they knew, and the ultimate outcome is essentially Stephenie Meyer (the mind behind the franchise) throwing her arms up in frustration over how to end the whole thing, so she'll just slap something together and call it a day.  It's a bait and switch that leaves the viewer feeling deceived and cheated.  Maybe the filmmakers thought they were being clever, but no.  It generates anger, instead of good will.  I have bent over backwards in the past to try to find something to like about these movies.  Maybe that's why this total non-event of an ending felt like such a punch in the gut.  All these years of struggling to understand just what makes this franchise so appealing to so many, and this is the answer we get.

 

I'll be glad to put these movies behind me.  And while this is not the last I have heard from Stephenie Meyer (a movie based on another one of her books, The Host, is coming early next year), I will never have to force myself to care about this dippy vampire romance ever again.  A fond farewell this is not.  This isn't even good riddance.  Let's just never talk about it ever again.

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