Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011) directed by Bill Condon
Within the first five minutes of Breaking Dawn I laughed harder in a theater than I could remember in a long time. I've learned a while ago that if you treat certain movies as comedies, it'll make your movie watching experience much better. This is particularly true for movies you know are going to suck.
The scene in question? Lovebirds Edward and Bella gazing intently into each others eyes professing their devotion to each other the night before their wedding with cheesy sentimental music playing in the background. The Twilight series has produced some of the cheesiest dialogue and melodrama I've ever seen. I'm sure it all sounds nice when you're reading it in a book, but certain things should never be said aloud.
It also doesn't help that the series has been horribly acted. To be fair, you can't really blame the actors because of the inane material they have to work with but still... Why does Edward always look like someone just stole his lunch money? Why does he always come across as a whiny little girl? Can he raise his voice above a seductive whisper? Taylor Lautner only takes his shirt off once in the entire film. WTF is up with that? When he's given a shirt and some meatier lines, he fails big time. Kristen Stewart has actually gotten a lot better over the course of the series and is the best actor of the three leads (after easily being the worst) but that's like saying she's really tall for a midget.
Ironically my real complaint with the film is that it's not bad enough which makes the film kind of boring. One thing I could count on from the other movies was to be mildly entertaining, but here they slow the pace waaaaaaay down to a painful halt. The beginning wedding scene is meant to be dreamy, and it is, when it puts you to sleep (I can write bad as well). The middle honeymoon scenes are meant to be romantic, but it focuses so much on this teenage sex angle that it sort of detracts from the overall film. I know it is Bella's first time and all and is supposed to resonate with the franchise's primary demographic, but let's try to focus a little more on vampires and werewolves and demon babies okay? The last third of the film is when the action sort of picks up but not really. Also I don't remember the werewolves looking so bad in previous films, but in this film the CGI looks particularly bad. At least I got to laugh at the growling psychic conversations between the wolves.
Unfortunately Breaking Dawn Part 1 is probably the least funny of the four films so far which also makes it the most disappointing. Hopefully Part 2 will be both funnier and livelier once all the tedious set up has gotten out of the way.
Grade: C-
Within the first five minutes of Breaking Dawn I laughed harder in a theater than I could remember in a long time. I've learned a while ago that if you treat certain movies as comedies, it'll make your movie watching experience much better. This is particularly true for movies you know are going to suck.
The scene in question? Lovebirds Edward and Bella gazing intently into each others eyes professing their devotion to each other the night before their wedding with cheesy sentimental music playing in the background. The Twilight series has produced some of the cheesiest dialogue and melodrama I've ever seen. I'm sure it all sounds nice when you're reading it in a book, but certain things should never be said aloud.
It also doesn't help that the series has been horribly acted. To be fair, you can't really blame the actors because of the inane material they have to work with but still... Why does Edward always look like someone just stole his lunch money? Why does he always come across as a whiny little girl? Can he raise his voice above a seductive whisper? Taylor Lautner only takes his shirt off once in the entire film. WTF is up with that? When he's given a shirt and some meatier lines, he fails big time. Kristen Stewart has actually gotten a lot better over the course of the series and is the best actor of the three leads (after easily being the worst) but that's like saying she's really tall for a midget.
Ironically my real complaint with the film is that it's not bad enough which makes the film kind of boring. One thing I could count on from the other movies was to be mildly entertaining, but here they slow the pace waaaaaaay down to a painful halt. The beginning wedding scene is meant to be dreamy, and it is, when it puts you to sleep (I can write bad as well). The middle honeymoon scenes are meant to be romantic, but it focuses so much on this teenage sex angle that it sort of detracts from the overall film. I know it is Bella's first time and all and is supposed to resonate with the franchise's primary demographic, but let's try to focus a little more on vampires and werewolves and demon babies okay? The last third of the film is when the action sort of picks up but not really. Also I don't remember the werewolves looking so bad in previous films, but in this film the CGI looks particularly bad. At least I got to laugh at the growling psychic conversations between the wolves.
Unfortunately Breaking Dawn Part 1 is probably the least funny of the four films so far which also makes it the most disappointing. Hopefully Part 2 will be both funnier and livelier once all the tedious set up has gotten out of the way.
Grade: C-
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