Breaking Dawn: Part 2

I promise you that I am not a secret fan of the Twilight Saga.  I read the first book and watched the first three films under extreme duress.  I skipped Breaking Dawn: Part 1 as even the idea of going to the cinema to make fun of it felt like too much effort.  I will be honest though – curiosity did get the better of me.

PART 1 RECAP:  Bella had a kid and is now a vampire END PART 1 RECAP

PART 2 PLOT:  Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) are happily married and raising their hideously named child Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy).  Jacob (Taylor Lautner) appears to have moved into the Cullen residence and has fallen deeply in love with a creepy CGI baby.  The Volturi find out about the child, which they believe to be immortal, and set off to Forks to kill the Cullen family.  Jacob takes his clothes off for no reason while Edward and Bella rally the covens and prepare to make one last stand.  END PART 2 PLOT

The Twilight Saga isn’t known for in depth plotting and Breaking Dawn: Part 2 is certainly not the exception to the rule as absolutely nothing happens.  The first ninety minutes focuses on groups of vampires sitting around discussing what may/may not happen in the final thirty minutes of the film.  Nothing happens in the slightest yet, despite being just shy of two hours long, I didn’t feel the time slip by.

It is very easy to hate the Twilight series because of the non-performance of Kristen Stewart and her lack of chemistry with Robert Pattinson.  As Breaking Dawn: Part 2 has a large cast there were very few scenes which featured the two leads alone.  I was thankful for this as those scenes are either tedious or cringe-worthy but always boring.  I have no love for Stewart or Pattinson’s performances in the Twilight films and I simply don’t care about Bella and Edward as characters. 

The Cullens all returned and proved that while they are fun to watch none of them are particularly talented actors.  They should all be grateful that they have their looks. 

The arrival of the worldwide covens was handled fairly well although I was concerned to see that the Irish contingent flew in from the late 1800’s. I would like to point out that we do not wear dowdy wool spun dresses and look as though we have just finished a hard days work picking spuds.  It is easy to make fun but I can’t complain too much about the Irish, Brazilian or Middle Eastern covens as I wasn’t expecting anything other than clichéd characterisation.

The newcomers (or at least new to me) were all great fun with Lee Pace (Garrett) being the most enjoyable of the lot.  A Lee Pace film would have been more interesting.

Over on the dark side we have Michael Sheen leading the Volturi.  I wouldn’t do Sheen the disservice of accusing him of showing up for the pay cheque as he was hamming it up nicely and clearly having a ball.  It normally annoys me when actors are having more fun than I am but Sheen got away with it!

It is always nice to see Maggie Grace and it was enjoyable watching the brilliantly evil Dakota Fanning get what she deserved during the battle.

On the human side we have the long suffering Billy Burke as Bella’s father.  Poor Burke looks typically confused and his acceptance of the creepy CGI baby and the rapidly growing child was oddly amusing.  The CGI baby was replaced by Mackenzie Foy who was not as creepy.

I will admit that the casting of Joe Anderson was the reason for my curiosity.  It was not worth it as he appeared in a few scenes to bitch about being there and then left without saying goodbye.  I suspect that quite a few of poor Joe's scenes ended up on the cutting room floor but I will never watch the dvd to find out.

The final Act was the big battle which was hinted at in the (decent) trailer.  The battle sequence was fairly impressive although the Twilight Saga has never had strong effects which, given the amount of money each film makes, shows just how little the filmmakers care about making these films respectable.

The only compliment I can give Breaking Dawn Part 2 is that it wasn’t bad.  It caught my attention for two hours and I didn’t laugh too obnoxiously at the unintentionally amusing parts so I will give it a 5.5/10.  I will hear arguments for 6/10.

In terms of the franchise Breaking Dawn: Part 2 is easily the best of the lot but this is the equivalent of saying gonorrhoea is the best of all sexually transmitted diseases. 

Thank the gods it is finally over.