THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN - PART 1.

There's really only 4 reasons somebody is seeing this movie: 1) You're a fan of the series, 2) You're being dragged by a significant other who is a fan of the series, 3) You realize this series is terrible and love to laugh at it, or 4) plain morbid curiosity. As most of you know by now, I'm a mixture of the last two. In this one, Bella (Kristen Stewart) married vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson), she gets pregnant, and everyone, including werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner), gets in a huff because the baby starts to kill her from the inside.

Of the primary two male leads, I've always been a "Team Jacob" person. He tends to treat her well, generally respect her wishes (even if he hates them), love her unconditionally, and fight for her until the very end. Edward, on the other hand, is mopey, boring, mean, controlling, and has way too many stalker/serial killer tendencies. He really tops it off in this one, where he treats Bella as if her feelings and opinions don't matter (and then accuses her of not including him). Not to mention Bella always seems like it pains her to be with him, while she always laughs, feels good, and even says she feels "complete" with Jacob. The Edward relationship has always felt forced, and it makes Bella seem like an even worse person than she already is by treating Jacob the way she does.

Nothing in these stories makes any sense. Everything contradicts itself, and nothing these characters do is logical. And this movie, yet again, proves that all of the other characters besides the main three are far more interesting. From the rest of the Cullen siblings to Charlie to Seth to the 5 minutes of screen time we see Bella's old high school friends. They were all far more entertaining than the primary story.

The acting, however, has quite improved, especially since the first film. Kristen Stewart still needs to learn how to smile during the most important moments of her life, though. Even Edward gives a grin here and there. Surprisingly, Taylor Lautner doesn't act with his abs in this movie. Literally the first shot in this movie is him taking off his shirt, but after that... he tends to keep it on for pretty much the remainder of the film. Sorry, ladies. The one person I do want to give it up to here is Jackson Rathbone as Jasper. He might have only had about 3 minutes of screen time in this entire film (and that's stretching it), but he showed more charm and personality in those 3 minutes than he has for the past 3 films combined. Oh yeah, and Billy Burke's Charlie is still the best character in this entire thing.

What brings these films down is, of course, the writing. But you can't really blame screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, though. It all goes back to the source material. In fact, I've always said that the films are better than the books because at least you don't have to read Stephenie Meyer's terrible writing and how godly Edward's breath is every other sentence. And actually, Melissa Rosenberg tends to be in on the joke with the audience, putting in little quips here and there that make fun of the material. In the last film it was about Jacob's shirtlessness. In this one, it was toward how terrible the name Renesmee is. There was actually a surprising amount of humor in this movie, and I don't just mean the unintentional kind. I also must thank our dear screenwriter yet again for adding in an action sequence where the book skipped over it.

As for my opinion on the seemingly much-talked-about "pack mind" sequence? I'll just say it worked much better in the book. The telepathic talking between the wolves was silly, but it would have been silly no matter how they translated it onto the screen. The Jacob section of the book was arguably the best and/or only good thing in the entire 800 (or however many) pages. It didn't translate nearly as well to the screen.

Finally, I want to discuss the visuals. As usual, the CGI is rather questionable, especially Renesmee's face at the very end (what was that?). The practical effects, however, were actually quite exceptional. They finally made the vampires not look obvious, and Edward didn't look disgusting for once. So the makeup job on them was decent. The best work, however, was most likely a mix of practical and digital, making Bella look gaunt and deathly ill. It was done pretty dang well, so I must give credit where credit is due.

Was it a bad movie? It's Twilight, so there's no question. There are logical holes abound. The main characters are unlikable morons. The story goes on for far longer than they need to (Hell, the books alone could have easily been condensed into maybe 2 or 3 max, making this 2-part finale even more ridiculous than it already is). But was it entertaining? Yeah, it was. Like the previous film, it tried to actually be good for once, and at times it might have succeeded. But that also means it makes it a less entertaining Twilight film. As usual with this type of film, the following rating is based on entertainment only, not on overall quality.


I Am McLovin!

(P.S. There was a teen girl next to me who started squirming and going 'eww' when a certain character began drinking blood. This is a freakin' vampire story, girl. What the hell do you expect?)