The phenomenon that is the Twilight saga is coming to an end, but what will someone who has never read any of the books, watched any of the previous films, or even read about the vampire love story make of the latest film Breaking Dawn?
The girl in front of me in the ticket queue looks at her ticket before she randomly says, to no one in particular as she is by herself: “I am so excited.” And then she walks away.
I am not feeling the same extravagant enthusiasm – apart from possibly walking away. In fact, my words would have been: “I am so sceptical.”
I do not have a clue what the films are about, who the characters are or what they will be doing in the film, nor do I have a desire to know, yet in one way or another I did just pay £7 for the privilege of finding out.
And somehow I find myself in the cinema waiting for the bloody drama to begin (pun intended). The film starts with several wedding invitations being passed out to various people, proving so upsetting to one man that he undresses and runs into the woods (in the film obviously). As you do. Well, at least the undying thirst amongst 14 year-old girls for some male skin to be shown has been covered less than 45 seconds into the film.
It is a pity the rest of the film does not follow that example of tempo and efficiency. The wedding scene is as painful to watch as it looked for the female protagonist, Bella, to be in. What an utterly miserable bride she is! I am quite sure that it is characters like her that push young teenage girls over the edge to become emos, listening to Nightwish and playing with razor blades.
After the annoyingly long wedding scenes, including clichés of poor speeches, and the mandatory meeting in the woods with the scorned lover, the two newlyweds set off on their honeymoon – a highlight for most teenagers as they are expecting to witness some sexy wedding night scenes as Bella and Edward consummate their marriage. Which they do. In the most awkward sex scene I have ever seen on film, and I have watched Basic Instinct with my parents.
And two minutes later Bella is pregnant. Vampire sperm must be very powerful.
After this I am not quite sure what happens, but I wake up and Bella is very pregnant on a sofa, looking even more miserable than usual. Jacob is there and so are many other vampires, including Edward feeding Bella blood. Apparently it took them almost the entire film to figure out that a vampire baby might like to nibble on a bit of blood.
After a bit of poor acting and ditto lines, Jacob is back with his werewolf friends partaking in the worst dialogue I have seen in any film ever. They are all being wolves and growling at each other whilst there is a voice over (!) with their real human voices translating what the growls mean in human language. It’s like watching a very poor film from the 70’s in Germany, only with wolves.
At this stage I am seriously considering leaving, either that or seeing if I can pluck my own eyeball out of its socket with the straw from my coke, just to see if I can. Partly because of the poor film and also because I realise that I am the only boy in the cinema who is not there on a date – if that does not kill ones confidence, nothing will.
However, it turns out that experimenting on my own eyeballs is even more painful than watching the upcoming birth scene. And that is an achievement as the birth scene is truly horrible. Horribly acted, horribly full of random screaming from various people and horribly directed. The actual birth scene is directed in the exact same way that Guy Richie directed the fight scene in Snatch – heavy breathing, chaotic clipping of scenes and the sound of people shouting. Except when Brad Pitt knocks the guy out in Snatch, the baby is born in Twilight.
Then Bella dies, Edward tries chewing her back to life, as you do, for five minutes everyone acts as miserable as Bella has been for the entire film, before she opens her eyes which have turned red. The end.
I am left in my chair having wasted what seems like a year of my life. I am not the target group for this film, I hope, yet I do know how to appreciate good directing, well written scripts and decent acting. But I feel quite safe to say that all of the above are as absent in Breaking Dawn as my desire to watch the next Twilight film.
The film is as poorly directed as most of the acting and there are certain aspects I simply cannot comprehend – one of which is how two, apparently very good looking men, can be in love with such a boring drag of a woman that is Bella. That is just beyond me.
I walk out of the cinema without spotting the girl from the queue. She has probably ventured off somewhere to steal a poster of either Edward or Jacob, whomever she prefers, in a desperate wait for the next film. Someone has to I guess.
