Was not terrible.
Not only was it not terrible….it was AMAZING. Well, I don’t know about amazing. It wasn't amazing. But it was very good. By Twilight standards (which are very low),
it was AMAZING. By far the best of the
bunch.
Now, this is the part where I tell you that if you have not
yet seen the movie, and intend to, stop right where you are and read no
further. I know, I know, you've read the
book, but there are actually some spoilers.
Like, big ones. Spoilers that
will actually spoil the best part of the movie for you. You can come back and read this later. Because I know my opinion is important to
you.
This is also the part where if you have no interest in
Twilight you should also stop reading.
But you probably already have.
Alright, so. For
those of you that have read Breaking Dawn, particularly the second half of the
book, I think we can all agree that it’s terrible. Just so bad.
When I heard that they were splitting Breaking Dawn into two movies
(TOTAL Deathly Hallows rip-off) I was equal parts enraged and amused. Enraged because of the aforementioned Deathly
Hallows rip-off, and amused because the second half of the book would make for
such a terrible movie. TERRIBLE.
As a refresher, here’s a quick summary of the second half of
the Breaking Dawn book: Bella’s vampire training, non-stop vampire boning,
Renesmee is a creepily perfect talking half-breed baby, Jacob is in love with said
baby, everyone’s anticipating a big deadly brawl with the Volturi, Edward calls
Jacob SON, and then nothing happens. No
battle. Then the story ends and you’re
like….abuh?
So obviously, this is the makings for the most terrible and
anticlimactic movie ever, right?
I have been both dreading and anticipating it for months
now. I knew it would be terrible, and
some of it would just be so ridiculous that I would be forced to rip my seat
from the theater floor in a feat of super-human rage and throw it through the
screen. But I also knew that it would be
just ridiculous enough to be hilarious.
During Breaking Dawn Part 1, Gretchen had to elbow me numerous times for
laughing loudly during inappropriate parts because it was just so bad. And with the ridiculousness turned up to 11
this time around, I knew that I would probably have lapsed into laughter
seizures by the end of the film.
Well, IMAGINE MY SURPRISE when the movie was actually GREAT. I mean, I did laugh at a few inappropriate parts,
but it was more so a case of me thinking the wrong things are funny, all the
time, and also, I began to feel cheated out of a good laughing and mocking
experience as the movie was turning out to actually be good.
I mean, for the most part, I don’t remember very much of the
movie before the crucial HOLY CRAP part that I will get to momentarily. Here’s what I did have thoughts on:
1) Baby Renesmee was terrifying. Going into the film, I had only seen previews
featuring a full-grown Mackenzie Foy (the girl who plays Renesmee), and she’s…what….7? 8? (She
was 11. I looked it up. I have no concept of age when it comes to
children.) Anyway, because I had only seen clips of her at her normal actual
human size, I assumed this meant Renesmee would just pop out at that age and
they wouldn’t show her rapid aging process, which I thought would be a
mistake. But instead, they made a
terrifying baby child robot monster. The
moment the CGI baby creation appeared on screen, I peed my pants a little bit
in sheer terror, while all the preteens in the theater around me were cooing, “Oh,
she’s so adorable!” What?! Are you not seeing the same baby monster as
me? Do you not know what real babies are
supposed to look like? It wasn’t really
that bad, I guess (maybe). It didn’t
have one eye and an extra arm growing out of its face, or anything like
that. As a matter of fact, she looked
perfect. But perfect in that CGI kind of
way. I guess it was just creepy because
you don’t often see CGI babies, so it looked unnatural. But there’s supposed to be something
unnatural about Renesmee anyway (vampire baby) so it worked. But it was still creepy in all stages of
development except for when she was her actual age.
2) I liked the scene where Bella yelled at Jacob for
imprinting on Renesmee. Maybe because I
just cherish any and all Bella and Jacob interaction because I am Team Jacob
4evs. I know, I know, that horse has already left the barn. You made the wrong choice, Bella. That’s all I’m saying. You made the wrong choice. With Jacob you would’ve had adorable babies
that didn’t tear their way out of you and ruin your life. Just sayin.
3) The scene where Jacob reveals his werewolfiness
to Charlie was ridiculously hilarious.
Hilariously ridiculous. All of
the above. First of all, it was this
film’s Gratuitous Taylor Lautner Shirtless Scene. A final farewell to The Abs, I suppose. I shall miss them so. Anyway, Jacob basically did a sexy striptease
for a very uncomfortable Charlie and then just as the two men were about to
reach a whole new level of closeness, Jacob wolfed out and Charlie’s mustache
almost fell off in surprise. I feel the
scene was well acted by both Taylor and Billy Burke. I will miss Billy as Charlie. He is hands down my favorite character of all
the movies. And I shall miss The Abs as
well. Farewell, Abs. You had a good run.
4) I went into this film thinking I knew exactly
how many studs to anticipate, but I was WRONG.
Two of my past favorite loves returned as nomadic vampire friends of
Carlisle’s, and boy was I ever happy to see them, and would allow them to drink
all of my delicious blood any time they’d like.
a.
Joe Anderson. Remember Max from Across The Universe? The scruffy Kurt Cobain adorable boy
that wants you, he wants you so bad? Yeah.
Him. He played Alistair, a dark
and mysterious nomadic vampire with a bad attitude. He was kind of weird, because it’s kind of a
weird character, and I wish there had been more of him, but he did flee
hilariously to the Cullens’ attic at one point.
 |
| MAX! |
 |
| Alistair. You'll just have to trust me on this one. |
b.
Lee Pace.
Oh my god, my love. I first fell
in love with Lee as Ned, The Piemaker from the far-too-short-lived Pushing
Daisies. Adorable. And he played Garrett, another nomadic
vampire, and oh my dear sweet baby Jesus was he ever a giant flaming ball of
hotness. Possibly my favorite part of
the movie. Maybe. It’s just such a treat being surprised by an
old hot friend. And I think The Powers
That Be must have loved him as well, because they gave him a lot of good/funny
parts that weren’t necessarily in the book.
 |
| Ned! Oh how I miss you. |
 |
| "I'll follow you anywhere, woman." -actual quote. Sigh. I love misogyny. |
Neither movie picture really does them justice, because they look like stupid vampires, but in the movie…..ugh. Trust me.
5) This movie was a lot more sexual than the last,
I thought. Which was surprising,
considering the headboard-breaking scene in the beginning of Breaking Dawn is
what heled many a preteen girl through puberty.
The book leaves almost all to the imagination, but much of America was
hoping the movie would be straight-up porn.
It wasn’t. It wasn’t nearly as risqué
as I thought it would be. But in this
movie, Edward and Bella are having their first vampire-on-vampire sex, and
Bella’s mind is basically being blown as a result of her super-human vampire
senses making vampire sex way better than boring old human sex, blah blah blah. Anyway, this was more of an actual sex scene
than in Breaking Dawn Pt. 1.
Interesting.
Alright, so all that happened, and then we
get to the Just Plain Terrible part of the movie, The Most Anticlimactic Battle
of All Time. So just like in the book,
all this tension is building, and you think everyone’s going to die, all hope
is lost, blah blah blah. Team Cullen and
Team Volturi come face to face in the Abandoned Meadow Where All The Action
Happens. The Cullens are all “Blah blah
blah Renesmee may have a stupid name but she’s not an uncontrollable
people-killing monster”, and the Volturi are all, “Yeah ok but you guys are a
bunch of jerks and I still don’t like you.”
Then Alice and Jasper show up to save the day. Aro welcomes his creepy crush Alice, and
takes her hand to do his mind-reading thing.
Alice can see the future, (situationally, her visions change as people
change their minds), and she can tell that Aro still intends to pick a fight
with Team Cullen. Then, in a change of pace
from the novel, the Volturi…do something to Alice, I don’t remember. They attack her or punch her or pick her nose...something threatening. So, okay, I figured they’d have to beef up
this movie with a little bit of action since the book has none. So, that’s fine. Then Big Papa Carlisle is like “Nuh-uh!”, and
charges Aro, and they fly up into the air for a little high altitude vampire
spat. They both thud back on the ground
and Aro holds up Carlisle’s decapitated head and-
WHAT?!
WHAT THE…WHAT?! DID THEY JUST
KILL CARLISLE?! THIS DID NOT AT ALL
HAPPEN IN THE BOOK!
So,
okay, I think, they have definitely
parted ways with the book now. But, you
know they had to make the movie less terrible.
I’m surprised they would choose to kill off a main character against
canon, but maybe this is punishment for Peter Facinelli’s terrible and
unnecessary accent. Maybe Jennie Garth
wrote the script? Who knows?
Carlisle’s death makes Team Cullen crazy
with rage and revenge, so they charge at Team Volturi, and shit goes down. Everyone’s fighting everyone. Vampires fighting other vampires. Vampires fighting werewolves (Who are on Team
Cullen as well. Team Edward and Team Jacob were able to put aside their
differences and come together to battle the Volturi. If only the fangirls could do the same.) So fighting is happening and then WHAT THE
FUCK DID THEY JUST KILL JASPER?! It’s
understandable, Jackson Rathbone’s accent was also terrible. OH MY GOD SETH
CLEARWATER! PRECIOUS BABY WEREWOLF! AND THEN LEAH?! HAVEN’T THE CLEARWATERS BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH
ALREADY?! So much fighting! But Team Cullen is killing a lot of bad
guys. Edward uses Bella as a human
(vampire) baseball bat. See ya Mean Mean
Dakota Fanning: Team Cullen just ripped your pretty blonde head off. Oh, and then Aro. Killed Aro.
Yay we win!
Oh….wait….no…..JUST KIDDING! PSYCH!
Everyone’s alive! (Except for Irina.
Sorry Irina. But she was terrible
as Shannon on Lost soooo…) None of
that actually happened! It was just
Alice showing Aro what would happen if he didn’t back off. Needless to say, he backs off, and the
Volturi run away.
But not before everyone in the audience has
shit their pants because WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!
Did that whole badass decapitation-rific battle just happen and then NOT
HAPPEN?! HAVE WE ALL BEEN PUNK’D?! GREATEST PUNK EVER!
So, anyway, then the rest of the movie
happens, and since you’re still riding the HOLY SHIT WHAT DID I JUST SEE wave,
everything that happens is great. Or
maybe it really was great, I’m not sure.
I don’t know what to feel anymore.
But I thought the part where Bella finally used her shield to let Edward
read her mind was sweet and well done. I
really believed they were in love until I remembered that she cheated on him
with another guy. Sadpants.
In what I thought was a nice touch, the
very last shot in the movie cut to a shot of the last page of the book, and the
last line, “And then we continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece
of our forever.” I really liked
that. A nice acknowledgement of how this
whole craze began (reading.)
In another interesting touch, the closing
credits started not in a credits roll sort of way, but by showing a clip of
each character with the actor’s on the screen.
So Kristen, Rob, Taylor, etc. etc. etc.
Then we get to Taylor’s werewolf friends, and I was like, Why are they in the credits, they were never
not wolfy in this movie? Weird, but ok.
Then they show James, Victoria, and Laurent, from the first movie. And then they showed EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER
BEEN IN A TWILIGHT MOVIE! I thought that
was kind of cool. A nice look back. I almost wished they had done something like
that with the last Harry Potter movie, except it would have been so long, and
it basically would have been an In Memoriam reel, and I was already too
emotional, I probably would have choked on my tears and died.
Breaking Dawn Part Dos. A huge disappointment if you’re looking for
unintentional laughs. But actually a
great end to the Twilight franchise.
Nice send-off.
So that’s that. That’s my super long review. I hope you enjoyed it! Just kidding, I know you did.
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