Foreplay better than the Finale of the Twilight Saga
By: Emma Malm
After three movies of, “Please, please, please!”, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) finally gets what she wants: sex with her vampire lover. Unfortunately, the foreplay was better than the real deal. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, like disappointing sex, is a strange combination of boring and overly stimulating.
Director Bill Condon (Dream Girls, Gods of Monsters) doesn’t waste any time setting the scene for viewers: five seconds and one line in, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) tears off his shirt and runs into the woods – terribly upset, as usual. But, hey, it’s better than him actually delivering a line.
The next half hour or five are devoted to Bella and Edward Cullen’s (Robert Pattinson) wedding preparations and the wedding itself. Admittedly, the wedding scenes were beautiful. The camera follows Bella down the aisle, focusing on the details of her perfect dress, flowers and hair. Strangely, this feels like the most suspenseful moment in the film.
A montage of wedding speeches follows – the only instance of intentional comedy in the film. “I have a gun and I know how to use it Bella’s father jokingly warns. Simple and been- done-before humour, yes, but humour nonetheless – something the flick lacks over the next two hours.
Next in the prepubescent fantasy comes the honeymoon, delivering every cliché an overly romanticized tweenager could hope for. Everyone in the theatre was tingling with excitement while waiting for the big sex scene in the entire audience bursting into laughter: Edward breaks the bed, Bella wakes up with bruises, and the bedroom is transformed into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Is it just me, or does the following need to be asked: is this a good example to set for young girls?
Then, Bella eats some chicken and finds out she is pregnant with a half-dead, undead, immortal-vampirish-monster baby. I don’t know about today’s middle schoolers, but this bit was not in my girlish fantasy.
Naturally, the rest of the movie is devoted to a shamelessly unveiled abortion debate. Language like “it’s my decision” and “why can’t you see it the way I see it?” spouts from Bella’s mouth as she defends her choice to keep the baby that may kill her. But don’t worry; as this is a debate, there are a number of sides. Edward believes Bella carries a “thing” in her womb; the adorable Alice Cullen (Ashley Greene) calls it a “fetus”; the fiery vampire Rosalie Hale (Nikki Reed) names it a “baby”.
After a hipster vampire vs. bro werewolf battle, Bella goes into labour and things stop being silly. Any merit to the characters’ pro-life arguments completely negated after watching this birthing scene. Bill Condon leaves the land of melodrama – it’s just not dramatic enough – and bravely enters a brand of gothic horror. Gory and are a few words to describe this scene.
Though it was filmed perfectly, it was in no way integrated into the rest of the
film. Before entering the gothic, Condon has already jumped from romance to melodrama to just plain ridiculous, giving the film a fragmented feel.
per
,”
, which resulted
is
gut-wrenchingThe Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1
was not nearly as entertaining as the three films preceding it. But, if you want to feel connected to pop culture and you’ve already seen the other
three, you might as well watch this one, too.
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