The Twilight Saga : Breaking Dawn Part 1

Tweet

Review by Anthony Morris

Being essentially reviewer proof – The Twilight Saga is a franchise where the fans don't care what anyone thinks – means that most of the reviews for this particular instalment (Twilight : Breaking Dawn Part 1)  have been firmly on the snarky side. 

And why not? 

If the fans don't care what you have to say, maybe you'll be able to get the haters on side. Trouble there is, while this film isn't really what you'd call "good" in any traditional sense, neither is it unwatchably bad. 

In fact, many of its flaws would be considered pluses if it was a straight-up arthouse film set to bee seen by dozens of viewers rather than a globe-spanning media juggernaut raking in millions upon millions of dollars. 

The story is simple to the point of non-existence : Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) marries vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Patterson) despite the grumblings of werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), they go on their honeymoon, she falls pregnant and after a difficult pregnancy, has the child. 

That's not a heck of a lot of pad out two hours with, but it's the details that make this so strange : despite spending three films literally begging Edward to turn her into a vampire, Bella decides to spend her honeymoon as a human even though that means if they do try to have sex – they'd never have sex outside marriage, what with Edward being a 104 year old square – his monstrous passion could tear her apart. 

Turns out all she gets are some minor bruises (which are still enough to make Edward recoil in horror and swear off vampire / human sex forever) and a killer foetus that drains the life from her body and breaks her spine while growing super fast. 

So while she lies around looking increasingly corpse-like, everyone else (apart from the regular human cast, who basically get the boot after the wedding) standing around telling her to get an abortion. 

Which, in a move that will surprise no-one considering the series' firm "no choice" approach to pretty much all the big issues of a woman's life, she refuses to do. 

There's a bit of vampire versus werewolf action (the wolf pack wants the unborn child killed while the vampires are reluctantly supportive of Bella's decision), but who cares? 

If you're watching this it's because you're invested in the relationships, which means you really just want to see Bella and Edward and Jacob either staring longingly at each other, making declarations of undying love to each other, or looking wracked with pain when something stands in the way of the aforementioned undying love. 

And there's plenty of that on offer here. 

There's more to say – for example, are Bella and Edward so bland on purpose so the audience can project their own feelings and desires onto them (and if so, is it some kind of brilliant twist in romance storytelling to have both the lead and the love interest such blank slates?) – but it can wait : the film of the second half of the novel is only a full year away.

2.5 out of 5

The Twilight Saga : Breaking Dawn Part 1
Australian release: 17th November, 2011
Official Site: The Twilight Saga : Breaking Dawn Part 1
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Ashley Greene, Anna Kendrick, Nikki Reed, Kellan Lutz, Mackenzie Foy, Dakota Fanning, Maggie Grace, Jackson Rathbone
Director: Bill Condon