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#33 - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2
Bill Condon, 2012
A family of benevolent vampires and their allies must prepare for a war with an ancient cult of evil vampires.
It's been quite the journey through the Twilight saga, which saw human wallflower Bella (Kristen Stewart) fall for brooding vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) while also coping with not only the advances of childhood-friend-turned-werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) but also an impending war between different factions of supernatural beings. As the "Part 2" naturally suggests, this film takes place immediately after the smash-to-black conclusion of Part 1, with Bella finally having become a vampire in order to survive giving birth to her human/vampire daughter Renesmee. Of course, this being the final installment in the series, the plot then decides to kick into high gear by finally having the cult of evil vampires who have only been glimpsed in the past few films finally get their act together and launch an all-out war over the apparent abomination of supernature that is Renesmee, so of course the benevolent Cullen family must rally together as many allies as possible in order to fight off their dangerous foes.
With the possible exception of the first film, the Twilight films tend to be rather poorly-paced affairs that often spend their first half or so following the characters as they meander around the picturesque (if perpetually overcast) Pacific Northwest setting, with only the occasional scene of foreshadowing to hint at each film's extremely sudden action-packed climax. This same structure could also apply to the series' overall arc as it takes three whole films to resolve the main love triangle, not to mention the fact that the plot of the entire fourth film can easily be summed up as "wedding, honeymoon, pregnancy, childbirth". As a result, when Breaking Dawn Part 2 is tasked with providing an epic conclusion to a hit series, it (very, very gradually) shifts focus to exploring a wider array of locations and brings together a series of allies to help fight the good fight. If anything, the ultimate showdown does at least sort of deliver - before it's undercut by one especially bizarre development even by the series' already-high standards for such bizarre developments (look no further than the werewolves' "imprinting"). If nothing else, the series has been a pretty consistent source of entertainment due to the sheer absurdity of its paranormal elements. However, each film is still just as likely to yield boredom as amusement, resulting in one extremely limp conclusion to one of the misguided and badly-structured multi-film franchises in existence.
Bill Condon, 2012
A family of benevolent vampires and their allies must prepare for a war with an ancient cult of evil vampires.
It's been quite the journey through the Twilight saga, which saw human wallflower Bella (Kristen Stewart) fall for brooding vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) while also coping with not only the advances of childhood-friend-turned-werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) but also an impending war between different factions of supernatural beings. As the "Part 2" naturally suggests, this film takes place immediately after the smash-to-black conclusion of Part 1, with Bella finally having become a vampire in order to survive giving birth to her human/vampire daughter Renesmee. Of course, this being the final installment in the series, the plot then decides to kick into high gear by finally having the cult of evil vampires who have only been glimpsed in the past few films finally get their act together and launch an all-out war over the apparent abomination of supernature that is Renesmee, so of course the benevolent Cullen family must rally together as many allies as possible in order to fight off their dangerous foes.
With the possible exception of the first film, the Twilight films tend to be rather poorly-paced affairs that often spend their first half or so following the characters as they meander around the picturesque (if perpetually overcast) Pacific Northwest setting, with only the occasional scene of foreshadowing to hint at each film's extremely sudden action-packed climax. This same structure could also apply to the series' overall arc as it takes three whole films to resolve the main love triangle, not to mention the fact that the plot of the entire fourth film can easily be summed up as "wedding, honeymoon, pregnancy, childbirth". As a result, when Breaking Dawn Part 2 is tasked with providing an epic conclusion to a hit series, it (very, very gradually) shifts focus to exploring a wider array of locations and brings together a series of allies to help fight the good fight. If anything, the ultimate showdown does at least sort of deliver - before it's undercut by one especially bizarre development even by the series' already-high standards for such bizarre developments (look no further than the werewolves' "imprinting"). If nothing else, the series has been a pretty consistent source of entertainment due to the sheer absurdity of its paranormal elements. However, each film is still just as likely to yield boredom as amusement, resulting in one extremely limp conclusion to one of the misguided and badly-structured multi-film franchises in existence.