Till Undeath Do Us Part
In The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, Bella and Edward make eternal vows to love each other in holy matrimony. But this is not the first time that a vampire has entered into such a covenant. At the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, those looking for a more eldritch service can order their “When Vampires Fly” package. It is set in a creepy graveyard with a vampire minister. For Twi-hards looking to enter wedlock, they can also purchase the services of an Edward Cullen impersonator to officiate.
In this installment of The Twilight Saga, Isabella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is getting married. The girl we met in 2008 is about to tie the knot with her undead significant other Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and become a vampiress. Now, on such a joyous occasion in front of friends and family, what could possibly go wrong? Bella has changed her mind and wishes to keep her humanity. This raises many problems for the newlywed couple on their honeymoon. In the throes of emotion, Edward’s enhanced vampire strength could easily injure or kill Bella. He fears this so much that he will not touch his wife after their bruise-filled wedding night. Soon, the problems will be even more complicated. Bella discovers that she is pregnant with Edward’s baby, something that was previously thought impossible. The half-human, half-vampire baby grows exponentially faster than a normal child would and has the same enhanced strength. It is not long before the fetus begins to devour Bella from the inside out. Everyone will have to face these facts even Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) who now realizes that his tribe sees this baby and it’s mother as an imminent threat.
Bill Condon, the director who helmed quality movies like Dreamgirls, Gods and Monsters, and Kinsey brings us a film that is far from his usual standard. This films major flaw is lack of content. Using the kind of “split-book method” that made the Harry Potter franchise profitable did not turn out so well for Stephenie Meyers’ book series. The first half of the film consists of only slow and tedious wedding preparation and the honeymoon. But even once we get to the main plot, we only find it to be disjointed and riddled with many holes in logic. If a viewer who is not familiar with this series wanders into this movie, they will wonder why nothing is happening. Main elements of this franchise are tossed aside without thought in order to conveniently push the story forward. Apparently, this coven of vampires no longer sparkle even on the sunny shores of Rio de Janeiro. Condon’s use of tight and close facial shots is not doing anyone any favors. The make-up seems to have gotten worse. Peter Facinelli looked more like Liberaci smeared with pancake batter than a vampire. Maybe cosmetic funding was reallocated to CGI. If there was a high point to this film, it was the technology used to make Stewart look so ill and gaunt. Costarring in this romantic horror were Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellan Lutz and Nikki Reed.
This film dragged on at an incredibly slow pace. It will give you the only the briefest flicker of interest in the next film. Chalk up another one to the studio money grab. “I know how this ends,” Jacob stated vindictively in this film, “and I’m not sticking around to watch!” There will be many that will sympathize with the young werewolf.
I agree with you on this one, Aaron. I admittedly love the Twilight series but this installment has some extremely cheesy parts and it dragged on forever. They should not have split the book.
There were several things that they should have explained. For all of these movies Bella has been hasseling Edward to turn her. It was pretty much decided that it was going to happen by the end of the last movie. And suddenly she’s changed her mind? There was no background as to why.
“Peter Facinelli looked more like Liberaci smeared with pancake batter than a vampire” haha!!
The sad part is I’m not kidding! The make-up was the usual geisha style white face. But it was so low-quality that you could see a distict line where their vampiric complection turns back to human right around the collar.