The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

Breaking Dawn is the first half of the last two partsof the Twilight series and was hugely anticipated. Sharad Pawar getting slapped did not deter ... read more

Breaking Dawn is the first half of the last two partsof the Twilight series and was hugely anticipated. Sharad Pawar getting slapped did not deter the hordes from thronging the theatre and I had to be content with a first row seat in a packed hall.

I wonder what the teens (who is the main audience for this movie) thought of the movie but for me it was part romantic Bollwywood rubbish and part a documentary on pregnancy. It starts with Bellass marriage finally to the vampire Edward. They zoom off to a romantic island for their honeymoon and there is wedding night scene. He is too strong for her and bruises her while making love to her and so wont touch her again. That leads to tensions and frustrations till they do it again and voila! She is pregnant. This was not supposed to happen since vampires cannot impregnate apparently. That should account for the non use of protection which is so not the message the youth of today should be getting. The next part of the movie has us seeing the pregnancy and birth in all its gory detail starting from morning sickness to a rather horrible C section. There is of course tension with the wolf pack, which does not want the child born since they think it will destroy them and of course the seething jealousy that Jacob feels against Edward but yet helps him so as to protect Bella.

Robert Pattison looks sick with those pink lips and ashen face and Kristen Stewart is so vapid and lifeless that only a vampire could fall in love with such a bloodless creature. The saving grace is Taylor Lautner who infuses some strong energy to offset the soppiness of the romantic duo as they fawn over the big pregnant stomach.

If you are a fan of the Twilight books then you will love it or hate it but you will watch it regardless of what I say. Wyck Godfrey, the films producer has promised that Part two is "an action film in terms of life-and-death stakes". Also, in Part Two Bella will be a vampire and maybe the cold blood coursing through her veins will make her more animated. As for me, I am not holding my breath for Part Two or What to expect when you are expecting the Wonder Years age 1-5.
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When my 13 year old niece expressed immense interest in watching this film, I was a little taken aback. However she wasn't let into the cinema hall... read more

When my 13 year old niece expressed immense interest in watching this film, I was a little taken aback. However she wasn't let into the cinema hall as this was an 18 film; made me wonder if Stephanie Meyer had exercised such caution when writing the series. Anyhow, this film is for the fans and the fans only.

I am no fan of the Twilight Saga. Lets be honest its just teen smut wrapped in the package of quasi-literature and mega-studio money. So this movie only extends all that, just a little further. The film offers nothing new from the book, though spreading it over two parts kind of stretched my limits. It takes painfully long to establish and for some people who were watching Twilight for the first or the second time, this exaggerated setup was not only boring but even plain confusing. So definitely the screenwriting has faltered on that.

Director Bill Condon has managed to showcase some visual treats, especially in the last scene where Bella delivers. It was novel and rarely have I seen child birth so graphically yet aesthetically done. Full marks there.

The leading trio is just as wooden as they have come to be known. Kristen Stewart has upped her range a bit and could well be on her way to becoming the fantasy-drama queen. The boys, well the lesser said, the better.

Overall, this film should have been called The Twilight Saga: the wedding, the honeymoon and the consequences thereof. Go if you are a Twilight fan. 2.5 stars
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The Twilight Saga's Breaking Dawn : Part 1, based on Stephanie Meyer's best-seller is not only a frighteningly painful movie to sit through, it als... read more

The Twilight Saga's Breaking Dawn : Part 1, based on Stephanie Meyer's best-seller is not only a frighteningly painful movie to sit through, it also qualifies for all the top honors at the Razzies (the counterpart's of the Academy awards) next year.

The film also confirms a heavyweight assumption of how studio bosses can shamelessly go to any extent to maximize their revenues, blindly ignoring the unmissable flaw: that you do not posses enough content to suffice for an entire movie.

So in this stretch of unending boredom, made even more annoying by its cast of glamorously untalented actors, (Taylor Lautner's act deserves distinction) the story-line tries its very best to slow down scenes and add unnecessary exposition , in order to accommodate itself for a standard feature.

Bella marries Edward is a stunningly shot wedding sequence, where her pre-wedding jitters dreamily manifest into a nightmarish tombstone at the end of the aisle, topped by a crowd of bleeding corpses.

After the nuptials is the almost fairytale honeymoon off the Rio coast, to a distant island where an enviably luxurious villa awaits the duo, all stocked with deceptively warm-looking housekeepers. Between the sheets of the idealistically fantastical bedrooms that speak of contemporary royalty, the elaborate furniture is shattered during the nights of supernaturally robust passion, bruised backs, and then unintentionally funny lines like, "Last night was the most *insert sexual term* of my existence' are spoken with expressions, well which don't speak but just blankly stare, awaiting an equally, sexually somber revert.

Unsurprisingly, Bella's gone preggers expecting something like a cross-breed between a human and a vampire (who knows, werewolf, maybe). Now she must be fed with blood-soup in order to prevent her ribs from cracking, by the unborn God-knows-what. Add to the impending extension, Jacob's breed (apart form him) have already smelled potential threat and are gearing up, like always (remember the battle-that-never-came in Eclipse?) to elimintae it first-hand.

What's primarily wrong with this picture, is again, the fact its been divided. Meyer's literature isn't rich enough for it to be fractionally enjoyed, like the makers try to pass it as. She might have realized that she ain't no JK Rowling, but screenwriter Mellisa Rosenberg still hopes to outrun Steve Kloves, and fails devastatingly.

Frankly, even if i were a Twi-hard, i'd reject this model of showcasing absolutely uninspiring, and conceptually shallow threesome-marathon.

Most of the laughter comes when you see the entire cast so stone-cold and grave, speaking coyly written lines, and assuming its some seriously life-altering, or morally-challenging banter that's going on.

The film's only respite is its camera work, which benefits even more because of the exotic locations. Musical interspersion's add to the imagery as well, giving the film the fantasy appeal. Billy Condon (he made the BRILLIANT Gods and Monsters) directs this one : he doesn't do anything better. One can easily visualize his frustration on the non-actors as his past record assures he has a stern eye, but hopeless as the case here is, with no scope for replacements.

Breaking Dawn - half - could hardly have been an exciting set-up, for its lack of substance and so it isn't. What it is, is a safe skip, watchable only if you want to leisure out on a guilty-pleasure trip.
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