Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 was one of the worst movies in recent memory. This movie is based off of the best-selling novel Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. It stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner, and was directed by Bill Condon. Some of the characteristics of bad movies are: they are dragged out, disturbingly gross, and do not cater to the intended audience. Unfortunately for anyone who chooses to watch this film, it contains all of those elements.
The entire first half of the film (the entirety of the film is 1 hour and 57 minutes) consists of Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella’s (Kristen Stewart) wedding and their honeymoon that ensues immediately afterward. This portion of the film is very dragged out in that no character development occurs, no twists to the plot are introduced, and no new fresh conflict is introduced. In other words, half of the approximately 2 hour film is nothing more than Edward and Bella getting married and then making love in a very sadistic fashion during their honeymoon.
The whole concept of a human having sex with a vampire is incredibly gross. Then, on top of that Bella somehow gets pregnant even though vampires aren’t supposed to be able to reproduce. This is the main conflict of the movie because the fetus is not compatible with her body and is expected to kill her, but Bella refuses to abort the child. Nobody even knows what Bella is pregnant with because the situation is such an oddity. This adds to the element of grossness in the film because some unknown creature is growing inside of the main character and she still wants to keep it. Not only is this gross and strange for older people to watch, but it’s even worse considering that much of the intended audience is girls who are in their early teens and younger.
Even worse, the movie continues to get grosser from there. At one point, while Bella is suffering from the pregnancy, Edward thinks it would be a good idea for Bella, a human, to drink human blood to see if that would satisfy the fetus. Bella not only agrees to drink it, which she does with a straw, but also says how tasty it was. This scene was so putrid that my 18 year-old cousin, who was a huge Twilight Saga fan, actually fainted upon watching it.
[***this paragraph may contain spoilers***] Another disturbing aspect of the film is Jacob’s (Taylor Lautner) reaction when he first sees the child of Edward and Bella after it’s born; he imprinted on her. According to the third book of the Twilight series, Eclipse, imprinting is the werewolf equivalent of soul mates (Meyer 123). There is a word for this, it’s called pedophilia. Adult men having infatuations with infants is creepy, enough said. As it turns out, Jacob imprinting on the baby saves her from his wolf-pack because they cannot kill anyone that is imprinted from a member of the wolf-pack. The fact that the plot revolves around adult men falling for infants to solve a conflict is just disturbing.
Unfortunately for female members of Team Jacob, who are at least half of the intended audience, there is not a whole lot of sexy from Taylor Lautner. With the exception of 10 seconds from the opening scene, there are no scenes with a shirtless Jacob. Instead, the viewers get to gaze at pasty, scrawny Edward in a few beach scenes.
I don’t simply dislike this movie just because it can be trendy to dislike the Twilight Saga. To be honest, I enjoyed the first three films but felt that this one took a turn towards weird and disturbing, and took longer to get intense than the previous installments. However, I don’t think I’m the only one with a negative opinion about this movie considering its rating on its IMDb page was a 4.7 out of 10 from almost 60,000 users. I didn’t read any critic reviews, but the average critic score on that same site was about a 4.5 out of 10.
Works Cited
Meyer, Stephenie. Eclipse. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 2007. Print.
"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011)." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 12 Feb. 2012.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. Dir. Bill Condon. Perf. Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner. Summit Entertainmnet, 2012. DVD.
In your second paragraph, I like how you give us a sense of how dragged out the first half of the movie is (and how horrible of an experience it would be).
ReplyDeleteI also like how you incorporate some facts about vampires and how Breaking Dawn (Part 1) completely disregards any of those facts.
I really like how you incorporated the story of your cousin into the story, it really makes me question whether or not I want to see Breaking Dawn (Part 1).
One thing I would like to see, though, is your own personal RATING. While I was able to deduce that you would have given it a 1/10, I still would have liked to see a number there.
"There is a word for this, it’s called pedophilia. Adult men having infatuations with infants is creepy, enough said...The fact that the plot revolves around adult men falling for infants to solve a conflict is just disturbing." I think that the careful way you worded this really added to the ethos of the piece; many people, when faced with a situation involving a grown man falling in love with an infant would have used words that I don't think I'm allowed to say on my English homework. By resisting the temptation to use vulgar language, you seem like you have a fair and balanced opinion.
ReplyDeleteAlso "Unfortunately... there is not a whole lot of sexy from Taylor Lautner" This shows you have an awareness of audience, because I'm fairly sure a large amount of people that would actually take the time to go see Breaking Dawn part 1 are not so much interesting in the sparkling undead plotline but the abtastic Mr. Lautner.
I really like your tone here. I think you did a great job utilizing Pathos to communicate the fact that this movie should not be watched! I can't tell if you're using hyperbole or not ("My 18 year-old cousin...actually fainted upon watching it"), but the effect is still the same.
ReplyDeleteOn a different note, I wonder if there might have been some way for you to discuss the merits of the film. I wholeheartedly agree that on the surface, this film is truly revolting, but I could see a discussion of the joy it brings to audiences of teenage girls. I think the difference between a good film review and a great one is taking into account the effect it will have on an audience. And this film certainly made a big splash, at least among certain audiences.
On a note completely unrelated to my evaluation of your evaluation: I like the series against my better judgment, but so many of the scenes in this film are just laughably bad, until she is dying...when the best part of a movie is the protagonist dying (which should alarm the viewer, not entice them), the movie has clearly lost its way. Did you see your review is the one most viewed? Clearly we love to love and love to hate Twilight!
ReplyDelete