The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2
Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner star in a film written by Melissa Rosenberg, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer, and directed by Bill Condon.
Something deeply schizophrenic beats at the heart of these Twilight movies, and it took the finale to prove it. From the beginning, we sensed that Bella’s unconsummated love of Edward and secondary sexless fixation on Jacob — who gets all the audience squeals in this film — seemed like a ridiculous moral stance. First there were the teasing hot chemistries and then the fact that the one she truly desired would turn her into an undead, blood-sucking demon. Losing her virginity (or not) seemed a stupid piffle, though the plot made a lot of tension out of it.
By now, the bigger problem is plain. There was never a point to all of this Northwestern Gothic love-triangle pseudo allegory. The best part of the whole series was the teenage psychodrama unreeling inside the Forks High School when Bella and Edward met. The reactions of her classmates were more believably dramatic than even the nice interludes with dad (Billy Burke), a subplot unceremoniously tossed away in this film. Instead, we get vampires going to the mattresses, a war brewing, and a tricky plot twist that seems funny at first but just gets more and more irritating as you reflect on it. Nothing is sacrificed or revealed.
These films have steadily eroded from the original modernist architecture among the trees with Radiohead music to shots that are furnished by Crate & Barrel and accompanied by the lugubrious music of Passion Pit. Ultimately, this monster story ends with sap instead of blood, against expectations and contrary to the genre. You may smile at the ending, but soon you, too, will feel crazy stupid for sitting though five long films that actually sucked.
