Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I

As if the holiday weren’t sappy enough, Valentine’s Day saw the release of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I on DVD. And since people seem to love nothing better than a good Twilight thumping, it seemed like the obvious choice for a first review.

Well, can I just say that it’s been a long journey of more skin-shimmering, lip chewing and shirtless forest-running than a tween with a Kindle can handle to get to this most tender of moments, the wedding of Bella and Edward. The night before, Edward spends an evening of good clean animal slaughtering with the Cullen bros (sounds like a sweet bachelor party to me) and Bella dreams of slaughtering all their wedding guests in a moment of vampiric ecstasy. Yep, they’re a match made in heaven. All this foreboding couldn’t quell true love, though, and under a canopy of hanging flowers (in Washington??) Bella meets to wed her undead beau.

Okay. This is the same undead beau who in the first book/film had a penchant for lurking in Bella’s bedroom as she slept unawares. Uh-huh. Remember Elizabeth Smart, the little girl who was kidnapped several years ago and then subsequently forced to marry her kidnapper? I imagine Twilight as something like this. I keep waiting for the scene when Bella bolts for Siberia and tells the locals how she, fearing for her life, ingratiated herself with the Cullens while waiting for the opportune moment to escape.

 At least all that hanging-on with dull dud Jacob would finally make sense. But then again, a wolf pack probably wouldn’t be much better. Either way, the forest animals are getting slaughtered. And too bad our buff buddy Jacob “imprints” on Bella’s infant daughter, taking the creep factor to level 12. Yeesh.

But discussing the baby leads me to my most irksome of complaints. At no point during her painful and horrific pregnancy and delivery does Bella show the slightest apprehension to the situation or Edward. No “You did this to me!!” or “When I become a vampire I’m going to throw you through the window!” Edward the Sullen Cullen takes care of the guilt himself, curling up into a ball of despair and swearing off touching her ever again. No, Bella is the mouth-breathing Rock of Ages! A noble attempt, Stephanie, but when I see Bella slurping blood through a bendy straw, I’m not buying it.

I’m also not buying the whole “I can hear the baby; she says she loves you” thing, but Becky has heard enough of my groanings on that subject for the world, so we’ll gloss over.

This isn’t to say that the entire movie is terrible. There is a genuinely well-directed sequence after the wedding night where Bella remembers Edwards touches the night before. It’s endearing, not exploitive, and has some really nice music to accompany it. And the wedding itself wasn’t so bad, though I’m a little embarrassed that, in terms of anticipation, it almost beat out Prince William and Kate for wedding of the year.    

While we have our differing opinions on the Twilight series as a whole (*cough* it sucks *cough*), we both agree that this movie was pretty bad. The silver lining was Jessica’s (Anna Kendrick) hilarious reception speech. If I had to pick a character to front, I’m team Jessica all the way.

Side Note: I’ve chosen to be the bigger man (for once) and not review the books. For one, I haven’t read any of the books to completion (which would be unfair), and secondly…well, there just aren’t enough bytes on the World Wide Web to describe my displeasure with them.

-John