Sparkling vampires continue to suck

Director: Bill Condon

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson

For those unaware, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 is the newest installment in the Twilight movie saga based on the novels of the same name.

Following the marriage between Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), and continuing to follow them through their honeymoon to the birth of their first child, Breaking Dawn somehow manages to fit all of this into the timeline of just a few short months. The baby is apparently able to magically grow at an increased rate.

The movie is actually quite hilarious, starting from the incredibly awkward speeches during the wedding, to the Keanu Reeves-style one-dimensional acting, to the vampires punching werewolves in the face. During the wedding, not one person, including the bride, looks even the slightest bit happy, and Kristen Stewart’s expression ranges from slightly nauseous to slightly annoyed.

Credit should be given to Taylor Lautner—playing Jacob Black— who actually seems to at least be trying to give his character some emotional depth, even if that depth is simply varying degrees of anger and angst.

Perhaps the most entertainingly awkward moments come when Bella, Edward and Jacob interact. Most of these moments involve Bella and Jacob being almost intimate while Edward creepily stares at them from a distance. One would think that the stalking would have ended with the marriage, but in a world of super-premature-vampire-fetuses anything is possible.

The rest of the interactions between any characters range from indifference to hatred. In only one scene does the married couple look even remotely happy, and it is clearly just a plot convenience to further anger Lautner’s character.

The movie is full of silly scenes that are beyond over-the-top. These included the reaction of Edward to learning he hurt Bella during sex and her spending the remainder of their honeymoon trying to convince him to sleep with her again.

Another bout of silliness is seen in the discussions between the wolves, which often revolve around the merits of killing certain individuals. The idea of a pack of wolves complaining to each other about arbitrary rules and squabbling like children simply makes one laugh out loud.

The truth is, if placed with other B-Movies such as Evil Dead II or Mars Attacks, this movie does quite well. The acting is either fantastically terrible or beyond over-the-top, the green screens are obvious and poorly done, and the situations are so completely unbelievable they render the entire production ridiculous. One could spend the entire time laughing at inappropriate moments, eliciting glares from those who actually take these movies seriously. The problem, unfortunately, is that this was never intended to be a B-Movie.

When compared to an A-List movie, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 falls short. It often feels as though everyone involved in the production threw up their hands and decided if they had to do it, they may as well do it in the laziest way possible. The majority of the effort appears to be placed in making the one fight scene look good, while the rest of the film was left to be completely silly. Enjoyable, but for all the wrong reasons.