The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1

The Twilight films aren’t known for their verisimilitude, good acting or compelling plotlines. What they are known for is – wait, what are they known for? People staring at each other? Part One of Bill Condon’s big screen version of the final book is pretty much what you would expect: silly, badly acted and menacingly conservative. And full of people staring at each other.

The film opens with Bella (Stewart) trying on some fancy shoes that she can’t walk in. Oh no! What if Bella can’t learn to walk in the shoes before the wedding?! The stakes are already sky high. Jacob (Lautner) gets his invite in the post and he’s all GRRRRR and throws it in the mud. Uhh, Jacob? Ever heard of an RSVP? How are they going to do a seating plan if they don’t know the numbers?! Edward (Pattinson) is feeling guilty about eating murderers in the olden days but he tells Bella and she is totally cool with it and it’s never brought up ever again. That’s what I love about Bella, she’s so chilled about her boyfriend eating people.

So they get married, then it’s the honeymoon and Bedward totally do it! It’s Edward’s turn to be all GRRRR and he breaks the bed with his sex power. AND THEN BELLA GETS PREGGO. Well at first she just looks in the mirror and strokes her belly like you do when you’ve eaten too much pasta. Are you sure that’s not just a Pasta Baby, Bella? Suddenly she’s all skinny and the baby’s eating her insides or something? Jacob meets up with his wolf friends but they’re all mad at him and they talk to each other with their brains. The wolves want to kill Bella’s baby because of some murky, not really explored reason. It’s super fun.

I’m not yet a hundred per cent sure this is a real film. Has Bill Condon seen films before? Because films that start with some bullshit about shoes (making no sense if you don’t know the story) – they aren’t proper films. And also, you know how I said the stakes were sky high? There are no stakes. Not even the kind you kill vampires with. All that happens is everything is great and then Edward and Bella do it and suddenly the shit hits the fan (“DON’T HAVE SEX” Stephanie Meyers screams behind every shot, “IT CAN ONLY END IN YOUR INSIDES BEING RIPPED APART”). And then everything escalates and suddenly the wolves are like “GRRRRRR give us the baby we want to eat it”. But why? Why do the people in these films behave in the ways they do? Why do the Cullens spend their undead lives protecting Bella? That’s literally all they ever do! Don’t they have hobbies? Get out of your sprawling glass and wood mansion for two seconds and get some perspective, guys.

Probably the most troubling thing about this film is its weird underlying conservatism. Sure, it’s OK for Edward to eat people if they’re murderers and deserve it, and also you should get married before you have sex but then you shouldn’t even have sex because you’ll become undead. Chill out Stephenie Meyer you big freak.

This film is, at the very least, more enjoyable than the last one, in that there are a couple of good moments within all the dreadful moping about and angry growling.The very PG sex scene is followed up with Bella in the bathroom looking at herself in the mirror, reliving the night before. That’s nicely done. There’s also a bit where Bella’s like “I’m going to name my baby Renesmee” and Jacob’s like “WTF”. That was fairly amusing. And it ends on a cliffhanger, which was generous of it. Hell, why are we even bothering; if you’re a fan of the series then you’ll probably love this film. Why not, eh? Maybe I even like this film. Do I? MAYBE I CAN’T TELL ANYMORE. HAVE I HAD TOO MUCH PASTA SEX? IS THAT IT? WILL IT KILL ME? I have to go lie down now.

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