When we recall the Twilight franchise films, our opinion of them is much more critical than we would be of the first three films. These internalized opinions, however, suit The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn films extremely well. The first three Twilight films were a mere spectacle that had nothing good to offer narratively.
They weren’t really the worst thing on the planet, and in fact, made the content of the source material a little more bearable. With The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn parts 1 and 2, however, the quality of the franchise fell to such an extent that it became these two films became the notorious face of the franchise.
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The Movie Review
This fourth entry to the Twilight franchise is split into two parts. And unlike other two-part franchise finales like Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, it tarnishes the quality of the franchise even more. It’s interesting how a fairly better director (compared to the previous Twilight directors) like Bill Condon would direct the worst entries of this franchise.
He has lately managed to show his potential with films like Mr. Holmes and Beauty and the Beast and had also directed the globally acclaimed Gods & Monsters prior to this film. Besides his own shortcomings as a director in this film, the source material might get the blame again.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is set a few months after the events of the previous film. It begins with the day of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan’s wedding. Jacob, however, is a friendly obstacle who seems to advise Bella against some aspects related to her marriage with Edward and some vows that took place during it.
His concern for the fact that Bella would still be a human while consummating the marriage is highly understandable though, as that results in the consequences governing the entire film.
The film entirely relies upon incidents, with no sign of intelligent life anywhere throughout the story. Why would an audience root for uninteresting protagonists who are the cause of their own problems? Justifying Jacob’s concerns, an explosive, bed-shattering sexual intercourse happens between the vampire Edward and the human Bella, and Bella becomes pregnant with a half-vampire baby.
Edward wakes up to see her bruised and in terrible condition and vows to never have sex with her again until she finally becomes a vampire, and upon knowledge of the pregnancy, it gets even worse for him because he knows a human can’t survive giving birth to a vampire baby.
Bella enjoyed it all and is committed to maintaining her pregnancy.
Talk about romanticizing Stockholm syndrome. From ignoring Jacob’s warning to being on good terms with all the predicaments she’s in, with the predicaments’ product potentially being harmful to even others. And on top of it all, this plays out with some of the corniest dialogue ever written in the last decade.
Jacob seems to be the only relatively sensible character in this movie, despite his packmates being a bunch of reactionaries. They conspire that the baby will not be able to control itself against human blood, with the solution being the death of Bella before the baby’s birth. Jacob, of course, opposes it, and not due to being a generally sensible individual, but his undying love for Bella, which makes him blind enough to believe she did nothing wrong.
Things get worse for Bella, as well as between Jacob’s pack and the Cullens, and somehow, it all goes in favor of the protagonists.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 checks almost all the negative boxes. It’s ridiculously slow for a 2-hour film, has a laughable premise, extremely corny dialogue, and a direction that seems to not help it at all. It even misses the technical competence that the first three films had.
Guillermo Navarro’s cinematography is probably the worst in the entire franchise, and Carter Burwell’s original score barely makes a notable sound. It’s hard to find things not to criticize in this film.
Even if you’re a fan of films of this kind, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is good enough to consider the end of the franchise. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is something that shouldn’t be recommended to even uncompromising fantasy or romance fans. It has almost everything going against it.
