The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 

Released in 2012 under the direction of Bill Condon on a budget of $130.5 million with distribution from Summit Entertainment; "Breaking Dawn Part 2" is the final movie of the Twilight franchise, based off a series of vampire romance novels by Stephanie Meyer. Anyone whose known me the longest, knows I loathe these books and yet have a story of mixed opinion on the movies. While I had problems with the first movie, I deemed it harmless and inoffensive to casual movie-goers, "New Moon" made me so angry that I labeled it one of the absolute worst sequels ever made. "Eclipse" may have been a step up as it actually created tension with stakes of this army of vampires that could potentially destroy the world, but instead, they focused all their time on trying to go kill Bella, who was being a total whore by playing with the emotions of two guys who are in love with her. Breaking Dawn Part 1 was pretty much a soap opera put to the silver screen that made me just shake my head from how dull the characters were. So why am I reviewing this film? I need closure, these damn movies were a big deal in high school, every girl obsessed over Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson, it was ridiculous. So, the same theater I saw the first Twilight, would be the same theater I saw the last one. I had a free pass to see the first Twilight, I paid $10 bucks for this one. Well f*ck me then. Let's get this over with.

Plot: (oh yes, there is a plot) After the events of "Part 1," Bella (Kristen Stewart) is now married to Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and has given birth to their daughter…hold on (goes on IMDB) Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy)….riiiiiiiight….oh and Bella is now a vampire as she demonstrates her new power by attacking and drinking the blood of a mountain lion, pff, please, Chuck Norris kills mountain lions all the time and he uses the blood as shampoo. Oh yeah and Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) has "imprinted" on the young girl, meaning that he has to be a protector/future love interest for the little girl that is growing at an alarming rate, which grabs the attention of the Volturi, a secret society of vampires that dedicate their time to making sure they are kept a secret even though vampires are already practically embedded in pop culture, but whatever. So instead of making attempts to escape somewhere like Hawaii or Australia, the Cullens decide to call upon some friends to come and prove to the Volturi that Renesmee is a normal half-vampire human mutton. Well stuff happens and we get the worst ending ever made for a movie since "Birdemic."

What am I supposed to say about this plot? Only this:

I finally get why this book is so popular to girls and young women. Bella is not a character, she is a blank slate so the female readers can impose themselves on her and put themselves in the story. One critic pointed out in a review that studios have tried this forumlaand have failed to recreate the same spark. See, I think I have an answer as to why that is: because Meyer has no experience in writing while all the other writers like Bioware at least have experienced writers under their belt. Because of this, the experienced writers know how to create characters that are fleshed-out and interesting yet they force the Twilight formula on certain characters to grab the attention of female audience. But why doesn't this work? Because Bella is an blank slate; she's not really a character with a defining personality or appearance. After all, why else would Meyer put so little detail to describing Bella's appearance yet put excruciating detail into describing Edward? 

It's almost genius how this formula works since it allows the female reader to imagine themselves in the role of Bella and imagine themselves being romanced by Edward. It only doesn't work if you actually keep your brain active and realize that this girl really has no problems and she's just making a big deal over moving to Washington and being thrown all this support from her peers. Other companies that try to recreate this formula, are not able to hit the same lightning in a bottle because they make the mistake to write people and not wooden blocks.

As for the plot for this movie, I'll admit, the first two acts of this film, while they were groan-worthy, at least built tension and managed to generate some interest for the inevitable conflict at the end, the battle, though not in the book, was so ridiculously violent I was laughing out loud every time someone got their head ripped off (don't worry, it's PG-13, so they'll just take the blood out and just make it look silly). But then, the movie pulls a "Next" ending where it turns out this huge battle never took place but was just one big "alternate timeline that could have happened" BS that is the cheapest excuse for screenwriting anyone can use. But it gets all the more insulting when the Alice character pulls her Deus Ex Machina card that she could have pulled sooner instead of playing that huge battle sequence, meaning that all the people I didn't care for are not dead but alive. Screenwriting 101 people: Death = Drama. You think Harry Potter would have been as big an impact in The Deathly Hallows if all the people who died in the movie came back to life after Voldemort was defeated? Hell no! Because if you keep someone who you liked dead, it sticks with you and it leaves an impact that the movie can be edgy. This battle scene is just a big middle finger since it just extended the running time of this pointless story that could have been resolved, but the battle was forced in just to give the poor miserable boyfriends the Twilight girls dragged in some violence.

Characters:

Kristen Stewart: I already explained above what this girl is supposed to be so no need to get even deeper into it. Believe it or not, there are moments where she acts like a regular person, shocking right? The only time she did this was when she was being motherly towards Reneseme; THAT to me was her actually trying. She's not being a cock-teasing bitch this time around but actually taking responsibility.

Robert Pattinson: He does stuff and he acts romantic, he beats some vampires up near the end, he's just doing what the script calls for. No more no less.

Taylor Lautner: Don't lose sleep girls, he takes his shirt off, hell he even removes his clothes just so he can transform in front of Charlie Swan (which was one of the funniest parts of the movie.)

Hopefully, now that this series is over, he accept film roles that would allow him to actually act instead of having to strip his clothes off, makes me wonder if he ever received a script for "Magic Mike."

Billy Burke: Despite the bad dialogue, he doesn't half-ass this performance. He's like the only guy trying to take the terrible script and work with it to try to at least give a good performance. If anyone deserves some praise for their acting in these movies, it's Billy Burke, cause damn it he's trying a lot harder than these pricks.

Michael Sheen: Oh man, can this guy overact or what? Watching this guy's performance had me laughing at every enunciation of his dialogue. You thought Kenneth Branagh was hammy? This guy is trying WAY too hard, do us a favor Mr. Sheen and go back to playing Hamlet.

Everyone else just sorta phones it in or just does what the script, be it weak, calls for. There were a few characters characters that stood out, namely this one guy (Alistar I think was his name) stated that he fought the British during the American Revolution and he lived through the British Invasion and hates The Beatles. He's given some development, but after the big battle at the end, that's it, later dude, nice knowing ya. 

Production:

Cinematography is all right, but as someone who has lived in Washington all his life, I can tell ya, Forks is not this mountain-like. Even the trees for certain shots looked wrong. There were times I thought the characters were in New Zealand and I was watching a Lord of the Rings movie. Costumes are just standard JCPenny and Levis while the Volturi's costumes look like they stole the Masked Bandit's suit from "The Fall." The Soundtrack? sigh* okay, the soundtracks for Twilight have always been whatever's popular in the pop music world, but there is ONE song in particular that made me fly into a rage and I was yelling at the screen that was playing at the end of the credits: Green Day. 

Green Day is one of my favorite bands and to hear a song by Green Day pissed me off more than the middle finger ending to this movie. But what is more insulting is to hear a song that doesn't even sound like their style. I would have been okay if the movie used "Last Night on Earth" in the soundtrack. I swear, hearing Billie's vocals over the credits, I was shocked, but I waited for the end credits to see if I wasn't losing my mind and sure enough, there were the names of the guys from Green Day. I can't count how many f bombs I dropped when I came home so angry to hear Green Day in a Twilight movie, just saying that has made me angry.

Bottom Line: Let's face it folks, this movie sucks, but what were you expecting from a film franchise that practically built on creaming the pants of women who want to get intimate with a guy who doesn't exist. The first 2 acts of the movie made me care a little bit and the battle scene had me laughing at all the heads flying. But that God damn ending and hearing Green Day whore themselves out left me angry beyond words. But just like "The Phantom Menace" even if I write in great length all the terrible lines of dialogue, inconsistent story elements or scenery or continue to bitch and whine how badly executed the ending battle scene is, it won't make a difference. This movie already made $141.1 million in it's opening weekend, even if I make a video and put it on Youtube explaining why this movie sucked, it just wouldn't make a difference. Soccer moms would drag their husbands and kids to see it, teenage girls would bring their friends and drag their boyfriends to go see it, old ladies who don't have anything better to do would see it just cause: nothing I could say would make a difference.

When I was leaving the theater, I heard a group of teenaged girls saying "I don't think I could cry anymore." when there was nothing really sad about the ending to begin with since the people who should have stayed dead weren't dead and the Volturi went away and we got our tacked on happy ending. In all honesty, those two acts did keep my butt in the seat and had me invested. Acting, while still stiff, at least feels somewhat natural and the supporting cast barely pulls off a terrible performance, the pacing just clicked on and the feeling of going up against a powerful adversary felt effective. The violence in the battle scene I found to be laughable and the characters looked like they were trying to rip off "Underworld." But the real selling point that made me angry was the big Nelson Muntz "Ha Ha!" ending, even if it never happened in the book, it felt like a big middle finger. This isn't the worst movie I've seen this year, but I at least feel a little glad that the damn thing is over and I did feel closure to the ending. 

If you're a Twi-hard and you're reading this review, first off, this is my opinion, flame all you want, it's not gonna change my mind, secondly, it's obvious you've already made your mind to see it so all I can say is, enjoy it.

If you are a fan of Twilight but you can admit the last book is seriously flawed, then you should at least see this just to see how much they got right.

If you are not a Twilight fan, then you've probably already made up your mind to either see it or not see it. I honestly felt this film wasn't so bad for the first two acts and the battle scene, though ridiculously laughable, was good enough, the ending made me angry though.

Final Rating: 2.75/5

Until next time, I'll keep the fires stoke for when we burn through celluloid.