(1 People gave this 3.00 out of 5)

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Review by Madison Monroe

Sparkly vampire fans rejoice!!  The time has come for the beginning of the end of the vampire/human love story otherwise known as “The Twilight Saga”.

With “Breaking Dawn Part 1” we see human Bella Swan (Kristin Stewart) preparing to marry her vampire boyfriend Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson).  On the eve of their wedding, Edward confesses to Bella that in his past, he went a little wild.  You see, the Cullens don’t feed on people; they get their nourishment from forest animals.  But during his rebellious phase, he basically became a vampire vigilante.  Instead of hunting animals, he hunted bad people, until he came to his senses and went back to animals.  I’m not sure exactly WHY he chose right then to tell Bella about this but he did and she didn’t care, so the wedding was still on.

During the reception, Bella’s friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) shows up, and then along came the rest of his werewolf pack.  While they are talking, Jacob expresses his sadness that Bella will soon be a vampire, and then they start talking about the wedding night.  As vampires are super strong, for a vampire to have sex with a human, who is fragile compared to a vampire, this could spell big trouble (as well as bruises and broken bones) for Bella.  But she is determined to have her wedding night, and the werewolves hear this conversation, so now Bella’s sex life is public business!!  Just what every innocent young woman wants!!

The wedding takes up probably a good thirty to forty-five minutes of the movie, then Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cullen are off to Brazil for their honeymoon.  Well they stop off in Brazil to take a boat to the family island.  When they arrive it’s evening (I guess it took a whole day to get from Forks, Washington to the private island), and even though it’s not technically the wedding night, in reality it is.  Since Bella is a virgin she is noticeably nervous about her first time, especially with a vampire!!  Supposedly, the scene that was filmed was deemed “too hot to show” and it had to be toned down for the film to receive a PG-13 rating.  Anyways, let’s just say that…they broke the bed.  And a feather pillow.

After that first time, Bella seemed to turn into a nympho, wanting it all the time.  But Edward, seeing the bruises that his formidable strength causes to his new bride’s arms and back, refuses her advances.  So they spend their time doing other typical honeymoon activities, like hiking, swimming in waterfalls, and playing chess.  Eventually, one day Bella wakes up and she is positively ravenous.  She cooks herself a ton of food and then she gets sick.  Uh oh.  Next thing she realizes is that her period is late.  Double uh oh.  Wait….triple uh oh, because the only being she’s been with is a vampire.  But, can a vampire impregnate a human??  Apparently this vampire could impregnate this human, because Bella is pregnant, and her pregnancy is advancing super-fast.

The couple returns home so Edward’s “father” Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) could investigate what is going on.  The rest of the family, including Rosalie (Nikki Reed), who never really liked Bella but suddenly they are BFFs, takes care of Bella, who is literally wasting away because of the creature growing inside her.  The family is sure it is evil, as well as the werewolf pack.  Also, there’s that matter of the treaty between the vampires and the werewolves, which states that both parties can live in harmony until a vampire attacks a human and turns it into a vampire.  Then the treaty is off.  Well, with this thing inside Bella wrecking her, the dilemma is, how else is she going to get better unless she is transformed?

If you’ve read the books, you know what happens next.

I was pleased that the one part of the book that really really shocked me (in a good way) was in this installment of the series.  It involves Jacob and imprinting and it was a pretty powerful scene (imprinting is the involuntary mechanism by which shape-shifters find their soul-mates.  It just happens.  There is no rhyme nor reason, it’s just fate).

Team Jacob fans will be thrilled that within the first three minutes of the movie, Jacob, in a frenzy of anger, whips off his shirt and shifts into werewolf form.

On the flip side, Team Edward fans will enjoy the sparkly vampire in all his shirtless glory during the honeymoon scenes.

I was surprised, because amidst all the gaggy love scenes, there were some funny moments.  Intentionally funny moments!!  One of my favorite scenes was when various characters were toasting the newlyweds at their wedding.    Some were just funny, while others (for example, Emmett’s (Kellan Lutz)) were rather inappropriate but still funny.

The acting seems to have improved (slightly) from the first movie, but the dialogue really isn’t the best.  I was reminded that these movies are based on books that were written for twelve-year-olds, so I shouldn’t really complain about the wooden dialogue.

I will admit that the setting for the wedding was absolutely beautiful.  It looked like an enchanted forest straight out of a fairy tale.  (Maybe this marriage will last longer than other fairy tale weddings??)

My favorite scene of the movie was the other much-talked-about birth scene.  It looked like something out of a good sci-fi movie!!  There were scalpels and blood and gore – it was great!!  There was also some interesting camera work during this part.

Overall, it doesn’t really matter what I, or any other film critic, says about “Breaking Dawn Part 1”.  The Twilight fans (I won’t use the ridiculous term) will flock to the theaters waiting to be fleeced as they sigh over Jacob and swoon over Edward (whenever the idiots in the theater reacted that way I just rolled my eyes and waited for it to be over).

This entry was posted on Friday, November 18th, 2011 at 1:03 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.