The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1

Rating:

The highly anticipated fourth film of The Twilight Saga has finally arrived: Breaking Dawn-Part I. The last book of the series was broken up into two films, which was a wise choice since most of the harder to grip subjects occur in this last chapter.  This last film follows the vibe from the previous one in keeping along the lines of the book series, so for those that haven’t read the books keep your eyes and ears open so that you don’t get lost in all the mind twisting things that Meyer came up with here.

 

The film begins with the buzz from the wedding of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Although the film is all about what to most people are happy occasions: marriage, honeymoon & pregnancy; there’s a tone of worry, tension and sadness all throughout that make the few happy moments tough to enjoy. The wedding itself seems just like a backdrop for the love triangle and although Stewart portrays well the nervousness of Bella during this happy occasion she doesn’t seem heartbroken to be saying her “goodbyes” to her friends, family and mortal life. The sexual tension in the honeymoon is definitely felt, the couple spends most of the time playing chess instead of enjoying the beautiful private island off the coast of Brazil. The lovey-dovey couple have a rude awakening when they encounter their first disagreement as a married couple: to bring a “monster” into the world or get rid of it.  There’s no real time frame here, the storyline seems to develop within a week. The character that seems to bring the most balance to the story is Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), although he’s hot headed, in this chapter he’s more of an adult and he helps for the three worlds mixed into this story (humans, werewolves and vampires) to not get too confusing for the audience.

 

The actors seem more comfortable with their characters in this film, they make them a lot more believable but they still need more work convincing us. At points the story-line gets overly dramatic for no reason and some actors seem to be by-standers that reappear from behind the shadows, which makes us want to scream at them and ask why they didn’t intervene earlier; since supposedly these are beings with more acute senses than us humans (Pattinson being the main example). All the tension culminates in the last 15 minutes of the movie when you are just waiting to see where it will get cut off. There’s so much happening towards the end that the characters try to narrate quickly about imprinting and immortal children.

 

For those that have read the book and even enjoyed the movies they will be happy with the result of this one because it stays true to the series. The few funny moments help ease over the soap opera atmosphere the movie reaches at times. For the squeamish ones there are some moments where the story gets very real and bloody so beware. This film helps mature the story and keeps it in range with its followers who are probably no longer teens but young adults. You will like the film if you don’t expect too much from it and remember that very little has changed in the sense that we are still seeing the same actors develop a story that just keeps getting more complicated and wacky. The second and final part of this chapter will come to us November 16th, 2012, which might be the end of the vampire craze that The Twilight Saga began.