Twilight: the next generation
And so the vampire phenomenon goes on... and on... The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1. Film review
Previously, on The Twilight Saga: pasty-faced teen vampire Edward Cullen pledged to marry the non-vampiric (but equally pasty) Bella Swann, much to the chagrin of his (contrastingly tanned) werewolf love-rival, Jacob. As the wedding approaches, the tension between werewolves and vampires reaches fever pitch. Or whatever.
Nevertheless, I must confess to rather enjoying the first film in the (now omnipresent) Twilight franchise. Certainly it was hammy, overwrought, and more than a little hysterical, but at least it was relatively harmless entertainment with some symbolic sexual anxiety thrown in for good measure.
Subsequent films in the series, however, have become disappointingly po-faced and earnest, with Bella and Edward's many trials and tribulations rendered in increasingly long-winded and tedious detail. Twilight has turned into one of those soap operas that used to run on American network television, valiantly churning out an endless series of tear-jerking moments for the benefit of a dwindling (but obsessively loyal) army of fans.
In this year's episode, the perpetually miserable couple finally ties the knot, and (following a steamy ‘Mills & Boon'-style consummation scene) Bella falls pregnant with Edward's child. Unfortunately it would appear that Edward Jnr has inherited his father's blood-sucking tendencies, and Bella begins to waste away under the burden of carrying the child.
Meanwhile, news of the happy event reaches the wolf pack (those well-known obstetrics enthusiasts) who view the vampire-human hybrid as a threat and swear to bring about its destruction. All this leaves one-time love interest Jacob with a rather sticky wicket as he is forced to choose between his affection for Bella, and his loyalty to the wolves.
It's all monumentally daft, but (more to the point) it's monumentally daft extraordinarily slowly. The marriage scenes alone take up a quarter of the film's running time, lovingly fetishising every detail of the matrimonial like a big-budget wedding video. Furthermore, because the film-makers have elected to split Breaking Dawn into two parts (as per the final Harry Potter films), we're denied a satisfactory conclusion. Harry Potter, I felt, pulled off this technique by carefully ending the first film so as to create a genuine sense of anticipation for the conclusion. Twilight: Breaking Dawn (Part 1) does not manage this, leaving us with some rather ineffectual fight scenes between the vampires and werewolves, and a laughably unwieldy title.
(I spent whole minutes trying to decide where that colon should go).
All in all, the latest Twilight film is something of an endurance test. No doubt the many fans of the series will find plenty of things to swoon over, but for the rest of us this film is a joyless, humorless slog.
Rating: **
N2 film reviews – supported by Newbury Vue
