Breaking Dawn (Part 1) Review

The Twilight Saga is certainly a phenomenon. The fact that , my 15 year old sister is willing to stand in the harsh winter weather for five hours to catch a glimpse of the stars is further proof of that, as if the herds of screaming girls and $2 billion accumulated income wasn’t enough. One cannot help but be immersed in the hype and was vaguely excited about the next instalment. I feel that the first film was actually very watchable, it stood as a film on its own and yes the ends were slightly frayed making for a smooth transition into the next movie, but had that been the end of the series I can say I would have been satisfied. After that they have got progressively worse with more and more obscene love-making and intense camera angles, it has become claustrophobic and ultimately uncomfortable to watch.

Having said that I was persuaded to go and see Breaking Dawn Part 1. I took my seat in the local multiplex and armed with the knowledge that Mr Taylor Lautner would only be removing his shirt once throughout the entire picture, I was optimistic to say the least. One thing to get out of the way, if you haven’t seen the previous films, don’t bother at all, you really need to know the back-story to understand what’s going on. The first problem I have with it is the book didn’t have to be split into two films, now I am aware the reasons behind this are purely financial and I understand that producers wanted to squeeze every penny out of this series, but it really would have been so much better as one movie, the scenes became way too repetitive. The second problem I have is the direction, the choice of shots are really poor and noticeably amateur, the techniques used are elementary and it really does feel like you’re looking at a high school play shot on a camcorder.

Bill Condon who is the named and shamed director of this mess of a movie, I do have some respect for. He directed Dreamgirls (2006) which I did find boring but it held together fairly well and was okay, and Chicago (2002) which he wrote the screenplay for and is one of the best modern-made musicals around at the moment, so he deserves some credit, but the direction of this is unsatisfactory.
 

Now I am being very generic when I say the direction is poor so ill give some examples. The wolf scene where Jacob talks to his clan in wolf form, a concept that hasn’t yet been done in the series, is dealt with very badly. Essentially the wolves don’t appear to be moving their mouths when they speak which would probably have been cheesy, but Condon chooses an even more bizarre way which is to have this odd voice over effect where he shoots the wolfs face and then the actors voice is played over the top, it is very poor and feels like a secondary school drama piece. Now I can’t suggest what might have been a better way of handling it because I’m not a film director but surely there is a way around it, but as it is, it really doesn’t work.

There is also the ending which I won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen it, but there is a very poignant and haunting final shot (that’s as much detail as I’m going into) that should be followed by a classical and chilling symphony but is instead followed by Christina Perri (famous for ‘Jar of Hearts’) singing some teenage pop anthem. That really frustrated me because I so badly wanted to feel something at the end of that film having strived so hard to find any sort of emotion other than boredom from after the first 30 minutes, and that climax (which was shot quite well considering) was ruined by that stupid irrelevant pop crap.

Having said that, It was decent enough and yes it lacked real cinematic purpose and that horrible feeling that the film was made to make money and not to tell a story kept popping up but that’s a given with the majority of mainstream films. The acting was dreary and frustrating as it often is and the best performance was defiantly Billy Burke as the emotional father as always. What I found odd was the amount of laughing from the rest of the audience, the comical moments were unintentional and I did find that a little weird and I too found myself laughing at inappropriate bits because the idea of a vampire trying to have intercourse with a mere human is funny. The laughter aside it was very average and there were good bits and there were truly abysmal bits. It’s not a complete waste of time and money but it really didn’t need to be two movies.  

**