Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.All this for a baby? Two whole movies to celebrate something that's been hinted at and known since Stephenie Meyer first put frilly glitter-infused pen to sparkly, sticker adorned paper? That's right, the tepid Twilight Saga, the very example of the law of diminishing (or in most cases, dead) returns is taking the Harry Potter way out and offering up its inevitable endgame in a pair of preposterous efforts all centering around the offspring of Bella and Edward. Sure, we get the wedding of the weekday and a weird wish fulfillment honeymoon on an isolated Brazilian island (complete with scared, superstitious housekeeper), but in the end, it's all about getting our heroine knocked up, and the reaction everyone has to her fast gestating mutant newborn.
After celebrating their faux fairy tale nuptials, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and his child bride, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) head to South America to finally sexualize their silly slow burn courtship. Of course, there's a problem. Edward is not sure his lust can be contained and he fears he will kill his willing wife. Even shape-shifting wolf pouter Jacob (Taylor Lautner) fears for his friend's life. After a couple of weeks in paradise, Bella starts feeling bad.
Sure enough, she's survived her partner's carnal concerns and is with child -- a rapidly growing, nutrition-sucking lifeform that is destined to destroy her. Taking his beloved home, he hopes Cullen clan leader -- and resident small town doctor -- Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) can save her. Bigger problems loom when the already wound up werewolves view Bella's situation as a violation of the long standing vampire/lupine treaty. They decide to destroy our heroine and/or her infant once and for all.Breaking Dawn Part 1 is easily the worst of the mostly awful Twilight films. The fact that there will be another installment of this anti-Dracula dreck is enough to inspire mass suicide among non-invested moviegoers worldwide. Fans of this falderal will drink up the mindless mediocrity like so many pre-natal blood smoothies. Everyone else will wonder about the sanity of those going ga-ga over this gunk. Clearly, Oscar winner Bill Condon was a bad choice to helm this halting monster melodrama. As a director's franchise, the films have clearly suffered when an uninspired choice (the original's Catherine Hardwicke, New Moon's Chris Weitz) sits behind the lens. Yet after Eclipse's David Slade almost salvaged the entire series, there was hope that Twilight had righted its cinematic ship. With the man responsible for Dreamgirls, it's a clear case of really wrong artist, really wrong project.
Breaking Dawn doesn't even try to preach to the non-converted. It takes the talentless plot twists from Meyer's final book and blankly illustrates them without a lick of excitement or intrigue. In essence, the first half hour follows the wedding, the second sets up the honeymoon and the couple's bed business. The next 30 minutes deal with the upcoming bundle of joylessness, while the finale focuses on the Cullen/lycanthrope beatdown. There is no suspense, no sense of adventure or discovery. Just rote regurgitation of the book's basic elements without an attempt at style or splash. Granted, at this point in the process, Breaking Dawn doesn't need to expand its reach. But instead of making mere product, it would have been nice to see some attempt at a compelling motion picture.
With its laugh out loud dialogue, standard stilted acting, and over-abundance of handwringing ridiculousness, it's hard to imagine things getting much worse. What we learn from Breaking Dawn however is to never underestimate the power of this material to suck...and suck hard. If it keeps going like this, a better title for the last installment seems rather obvious -- Breaking Yawn.
