A Conversation with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

I've noticed that since I started this series up again, I've been 'interviewing' some quite bad films. But they're the easiest to talk to, aside from films with great scripts (like anything by Paul Thomas Anderson - or L.A. Confidential, I had great fun with that one). Oh well, I only aim to entertain, and taking the piss out of a Twilight film is one of the best ways to do that. If you are unsure of how this series works, check back here for previous entries. The skinny is that my 'interviewer' Christopher (no reference to anyone living or dead) has a 'chat' with a specific movie. And today's movie just so happens to be The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1.

CHRISTOPHER: Hello there. Would you mind stepping out of the dark so I can see you?
BREAKING DAWN 1: I'm a vampire movie. I don't do lights.

C: That's an odd thing to say, considering your main vampire Edward spends a good deal of time sitting outside, in the sunlight, playing chess, and not sparkling.
BD1: He gets a lot of shit for sparkling.

C: I hate to break it to you, but vampires don't sparkle. They're not supposed to be fairies.
BD1: This argument has been going on since 2008. Just let Edward and his vampire family be. If they want to be fairies, they can let their freak flag fly.

C: Hmmmm. So far, we've had the love story between Edward and Bella, and Bella has been killed almost fifty times, plus there's something about some werewolves, one in particular who likes to take his shirt off. What do you have to offer to this obviously epic 'saga'?
BD1: Well, Bella and Edward get married, and Bella almost gets killed again. There's a really short sex scene in there, too - we didn't want to freak any little girls out.

C: So Bella almost gets killed again, what a surprise. How does it happen this time?
BD1: She gets pregnant. With a vampire/human hybrid. Now ain't that excitement for all the little fangirls?

C: Oh yes. I imagine a fetus that's half human is very exciting to whoever still likes you after all this time.
BD1: I still have fans. Mainly the mothers of teenagers who have already outgrown me. Mothers dig that sort of stuff.

C: That is quite surprising, as the series has just got worse and worse. You started out as an indie, which was fine, but then you got all cocky and the budgets got bigger.
BD1: As long as we're making money and winning lots of MTV Movie Awards, we're happy.

C: Are you aware that you're nominated for 8 Razzies?
BD1: Are you aware that that is probably more nominations than Drive got for anything this awards season? See, we're on the top of our game.

C: I'm not even going to say anything to that. Now this is only the first part to the final book. Tell me, why does hardly anything happen?
BD1: What do you mean, 'why does hardly anything happen?'. Edward and Bella play chess for at least 50% of the movie. And everyone thinks that is so romantic. Plus, chess is a game which needs to be brought back out into the spotlight. Harry Potter had a go at making it cool and all, but I think Edward and Bella really nailed it.

C: Yes, I'm going out to buy myself a chess set and hope that some clumsy, boring girl comes to play it with me on a beach. So romantic. 
BD1: It is romantic, for the fangirls, their mothers, and the teens that claim to be hipster but only think that chess is cool because I showed them it in a romantic light. 

C: Oh yay. So you expect them to believe in true love at first sight, with both a vampire and a werewolf, as well?
BD1: Yes.

C: Isn't being in love with a vampire kinda dangerous?
BD1: Do teenage girls think? No.

C: Oh well, if it were dangerous, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson don't do a good job of showing it.
BD1: Who cares? Everyone thinks they're good looking.

C: And what does she see in Taylor Lautner?
BD1: True emotion. You see how he furrows his eyebrows all of the time? And how he got so angry about the wedding invitation that he ripped off his shirt and went for a run? That boy has no heart of stone.

C: Just a face of stone. Thankfully, we only have to endure one more of your films. But you picked a stupid moment to end yourself on.
BD1: It is called ambiguity. All the cool movies end with a shot like that. I mean, you saw that movie called Inception, right? It had that spinning top at the end. And even though I didn't understand that, I thought that last shot was cool because spinning tops are so 2002 which is soooooo retro. So I decided to end with a shot like that, and everyone would be like, that shot is so cool. I mean, how else could I end?

C: I don't know, by fitting the entire book into one film so we could only have four films instead of five?
BD1: You don't understand. The longer we keep milking this vampire thing, the more money we can make. They'll be rebooting the series in a couple of years.

C: Oh God, now I really do hope the apocalypse happens. Do you have any final words?
BD1: TEAM EDWARD 4EVA XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO!!!

What I got:

So, When Does Anyone Actually Get Abducted in Abduction?

Film: Abduction
Year: 2011
Director: John Singleton
Written by: Shawn Christensen
Starring: Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Maria Bello, Jason Isaacs, Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina, Michael Nyqvist.
Running time: Far too long.

Hailing from the halls of all things awful in 2011, Abduction is the fifth film of the year to get the lowest of the low 1/10 from me. It joins such terrible films like The Roommate, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The Hangover: Part II and Sucker Punch. But the difference that Abduction has is that Taylor Lautner aside, it had a half decent cast. Maria Bello, Jason Isaacs, Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina, and poor old Michael Nyqvist in his first big Hollywood role offer their names to Lautner's big post-Twilight debut. Also different is the fact that those four movies have titles that make sense to the story. Here, no-one actually gets abducted. Unless we're talking about the audience. Never before I have I wanted to turn off a movie so much - but no man shall get the better of my 'start watching it, finish watching it' rule.

DVD--The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

or: The death of the sanity of young girls.

One word to sum it up: Lacklustre.

Again, if you happen to be a fan of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, then this is a good place for you not to be. I am most definitely not a fan of this atrocious romp about vamps and wolves, mainly because of it's gross love story and off the mark writing and direction. Also, teen magazines seem to overload on this shit, which has actually turned me against some of the girls (and middle aged women) who like it. What the hell is wrong with you? Eclipse isn't a film, it's just a reason to waste our time looking at some poofy vampire, a stoned girl and a guy with a body made of steroids and a face which hasn't reached puberty yet.

Bella (Kristen Stewart) once again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward (Robert Pattinson) and her friendship with Jacob (Taylor Lautner)...knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision of her life.

Let's see...people who love the series to death, own the entire book series, have walls plastered with posters of R-Pattz and Taylor Lautner, and have plenty of Twilight memorabillia, they will love this third installment. People who have never seen the series before won't understand it and therefore won't get quite a kick out of it. People like me, who are just following the series for the hell of it, will find themselves laughing at this movies helplessness and immaturity. Almost everything about it is wrong. Apart from the fact that this is a slight step up from the horribleness that was New Moon.

David Slade's direction is welcomed when it comes to handling the action sequences (and, thank God, there are more of those), but even they are reduced to being laughable. Sometimes I wonder if these guys have ever watched any real vampire films (if there are any)...because I don't think that vampires are made of cement. But again, despite the new director, we are seeing more soppy and almost creepy direction when it comes to the love scenes. Another thing that goes wrong in this film is the overstuffing of characters who do not need to be there. Yeah, they were in the books, but they just don't work as well in the movie. It's like asking the entire cast of Valentine's Day to be in one scene together and to know each other as if they were best friends. In other words, it doesn't work.

I can't review this film without going on about the three leads. Kristen Stewart may have once been talented, but it's like Twilight killed that talent. I feel kinda sorry for her, because people will forever know her as Bella Swan and won't recognize her much better work in the likes of Adventureland and The Runaways. But even then, her heavy reliance on blinking and pushing her hair back is just a tad annoying. Robert Pattinson basically has no future now. He'll forever be that creepy Edward Cullen, and while that may be good for his bank account and popularity, it won't be good for the future of his career. Enjoy it while it lasts. Taylor Lautner is just an example of a hot young actor who never had a future anyway. He's not particularly good in this (I mean, who is? Apart from Anna Kendrick), and I'm guessing people only like him because of his looks. What makes it worse is the lacklustre material that these actors feel obligated to drone out with little or no inflection, making this a boring two hours. Unless you take the piss out of it. Now that makes this movie worth watching.


THE VERDICT: What do you want me to say? It was awful. But it was better than New Moon, so it deserves extra points for that.

4/10