The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012) by The Critical Movie Critics

Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012)


The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012) by The Critical Movie Critics

The Cullen army.

Why is the Twilight series exponentially more popular than the more intriguing “Interview with the Vampire?” Anne Rice’s Louis and Lestat witness history, carry around significant emotional baggage, and speak dialogue worthy of a screenwriter. The Twilight Saga vampires are wooden caricatures, repeat the 12th grade over and over again, and carry on some of the most stunted and underwhelming conversations ever filmed. Teenage vampires must be more accessible to today’s occult audience than older vampires stuck in their 20s for the rest of their lives.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 begins immediately where “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1” ended. Bella (Kristen Stewart) wakes up from one of the most intense birthing scenes ever recorded a ruby red-lipped, red-eyed, pale vampire. She sees minute details football fields in front of her, sprints faster than a car, jumps to the tree tops, and lusts after warm blooded creatures, both human and animal. For her first kill, instead of taking out a poor, innocent doe she was tracking, Bella sinks her fangs into what is most likely an endangered mountain lion that was about to feast on said deer. Predator becomes prey, who was once prey is now predator.

The spawn of the previously mentioned birth is the unfortunately named Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy). CGI effects make her look more like Gollum than the half-human, half-vampire she is. She’s got nothing on Kirsten Dunst’s Claudia in the vampire department. Unlike Claudia, however, Renesmee is saddled with Jacob the werewolf protector (Taylor Lautner) who puts off an extremely disturbing vibe that in the future he is going to become much more than just her bodyguard. In an awkward and forced anger scene, Bella kicks the crap out of Jacob for his “imprinting” on her infant daughter as an amused Edward (Robert Pattinson) looks on. At least Jacob as a werewolf looks somewhat believable.

The special effects showing vampires running through the woods (and much of everything else they do), is not so believable. When Bella and Edward are shown in close-up admiring one another while sprinting, they blatantly do not fit in with the passing background (taking the audience right out of the movie experience). Another incongruent element is the advanced rate of Renesmee’s development. She grows six inches every month or so which confuses Bella’s poor father Charlie (Billy Burke). Charlie is written as the dumbest human being alive. Jacob needlessly disrobes in front of him to show him he is a werewolf (fulfilling his mandatory shirtlessness) and Bella tells him she is fine but cannot tell him anything else about herself, even why she looks different. They tell Charlie Resmenee is his adopted niece even though she looks exactly like her mother. Poor Charlie. These Twilight films never give him a chance to be more than a bumbling fool.

Twilight audiences have also been played a fool going through five films now just waiting for something to happen. Is there a payoff to finally be had in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2? Yes and no. Through a misunderstanding involving Edward’s cousin Irina (Maggie Grace), the ancient vampire leaders known as the Volturi learn of Bella’s child which runs afoul of one of the top three vampire rules. To correct this, Aro (Michael Sheen) and Jane (Dakota Fanning) lead the robed and hooded Italian clan to meet the Cullen clan in the snowy fields of the Pacific Northwest. Michael Sheen purposefully overacts; however, this works since anyone who is as old as he seems to be probably has a few cobwebs in the attic. At least he makes up for monosyllabic Jane who only gets to mumble the word “pain” every now and again.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012) by The Critical Movie Critics

A red-eyed Bella.

Nothing makes up for Maggie Grace, who proves she is an actress on equal footing of blandness as Kristen Stewart. At least she is the catalyst for the most interesting part of the film — the gathering and introduction of other vampires of the world. It seems globalization has affected blood-suckers as well. A British guy, an Irish family, Transylvanians with corresponding atrocious accents, an Arab, and even a pair of Amazon warriors make their entrance pledging to help the Cullens argue their case to the Volturi lawmakers.

The pay-off comes in the form of two undead armies on opposing sides of a large and open field in the dead of winter ready for battle (vampires are lucky they do not get cold because those scantily clad Amazon warriors would be in trouble). There is a mountain of internet chatter about a twist ending and I will not reveal what happens on this field, other than it is violent, bloody and it works. There are those who are angry and call it a cheap trick, but instead, it is a cleverly written piece which tries, but not does make up for the lazy misunderstanding which brought them all together in the first place.

The Twilight series is now over and while The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is not a good movie, it is far better than its three predecessors and matches the first installment which is not that good of a movie either. If you are a teenager, you already saw this movie. Three times. If, however, you have aged past prepubescence, save yourself the two hours and go back and watch the infinitely better “Interview with the Vampire” again.

Critical Movie Critic Rating:
2 Star Rating: Bad

2

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'Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012)' have 23 comments

  1. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 28, 2012 @ 1:52 pm WhiteBuddha

    I feared this day would never come.

  2. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 28, 2012 @ 2:31 pm EagerDon

    Emo sulkfest, fare thee well. I’ll miss the good times we shared.

  3. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 28, 2012 @ 2:53 pm Blight

    NO.

  4. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 28, 2012 @ 3:29 pm heidos

    With her share of ill-gotten gains maybe Kristen Stewart can pay for acting lessons now.

  5. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 28, 2012 @ 4:04 pm Vanilla Icee

    Bad acting aside, had they spent a few dollars more on effects I think the series would have been better received. The wolf transformations were terrible and Bella’s scaling of the cliff in this installment was nearly as bad as the wall climb in Vamps.

  6. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 28, 2012 @ 6:12 pm Kelso

    I look at it this way: girls get the Twilight series, boys get Transformers. Even trade off.

  7. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 28, 2012 @ 7:54 pm SweaterVest

    Other than maybe the five minutes of almost good vampire on vampire fighting, Part 2 is simply abysmal.

  8. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 28, 2012 @ 8:20 pm Clarissa

    What I can’t understand is why Twilight receives so much backlash. There are plenty of other movies that are equally as bad that did well at the box office.

    • The Critical Movie Critics

      November 29, 2012 @ 12:33 pm Gary

      There are no movies that have done so well that are so bad. Guaranteed.

  9. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 28, 2012 @ 9:02 pm 2th

    Great review, your sarcasm is noted and much derserved.

  10. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 28, 2012 @ 10:10 pm Sileem

    At least it goes out with a bang. With the teen lovey-dovey crap out of the way, the story actually gets interesting enough to follow.

  11. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 29, 2012 @ 1:39 am HIV

    Jacob got the short end of the stick. Bella is such a bitch.

    • The Critical Movie Critics

      December 2, 2012 @ 12:06 pm Cosmo Kramer

      Could you imagine an eternity with Bella? I think Jacob is the one who came out smelling like a rose!!

  12. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 29, 2012 @ 4:22 am BRIANNA

    MY FAVE MOVIE!!!

  13. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 29, 2012 @ 2:36 pm Quantril

    Don’t get your hopes up that this will be the last of the Twilights. With so much money at stake, I can envision many more to come.

  14. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 29, 2012 @ 2:50 pm PocketAces

    Part 2 is quite literally the best of the worst. It’s like being the smartest kid in a class full of retards (who by the way are the people flocking to see this).

  15. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 29, 2012 @ 5:40 pm souless

    The test of men in the future will be to sit through the entire Twilight series sober and with no breaks.

  16. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 30, 2012 @ 12:06 am Kenny

    It is so incredibly bad I swear it is done on purpose.

  17. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 30, 2012 @ 3:31 pm Barbara

    Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks, people.

  18. The Critical Movie Critics

    November 30, 2012 @ 9:49 pm Micheline

    Commendable job for not tearing it to bits Charlie. The movie has entertainment value–you’ve just got to be willing to get past the obvious shortfalls.

  19. The Critical Movie Critics

    December 1, 2012 @ 6:44 pm WinsorIII

    I’m happy to announce I’ve not seen any of these movies. I am better than you all.

  20. The Critical Movie Critics

    December 4, 2012 @ 9:47 pm mangles

    I’ll wait another month before viewing. It’s tough enough to sit through these as it is but it is torture to have to sit through them with a theater full of 13 year old girls squealing every ten seconds.

  21. The Critical Movie Critics

    December 7, 2012 @ 5:07 pm Ben

    I wouldn’t call the ending a twist, I’d call it a copout.

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