joshuadrake-91275 --WARNING! This review contains spoilers, if you haven't seen this film, you may want to before reading this review!-- Well, I have reviewed the first three films in the five-film TWILIGHT franchise, now it's time to continue with THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN. Before you read this review, I recommend you watch the first part of BREAKING DAWN before you read this review.Now, let's get started.PLOT THEATRICAL VERSION The first part follows the first half of the last book nicely: It follows Bella and Edward as they get married, have their honeymoon, until they learn that Bella has became pregnant. They return back to Forks and this causes conflict between Jacob Black and Edward Cullen, but they eventually work together to protect her because the wolf pack leader Sam, is against the baby and fearing that every human will be in danger, they try to destroy it.Bella soon has the baby and names it Renesmee, but she dies soon after. Jacob gets all emotional and attempts to kill the baby, but he imprints on the child instead and tells Edward that he won't kill him.This leads into a big and intense fight between the Cullens, Jacob and the other werewolves, in which Jacob responds to Sam, "Stop! It's over! If you kill her, you kill me!".Edward waits until she dies to change Bella into a vampire, in which she turns into a vampire the next day before the film ends.In a post-credits scene, The Volturi and their leader Aro receives a letter from Carlisle saying that Bella and Renesmee has joined their family, in which replies, "They have something that I want".The extended version opens a little different than it does in the original theatrical version of the film. It opens with an invitation being sent by Carlisle to Aro and the Volturi about Bella and Edward's wedding, in which he kills a girl in his crew. The rest of the film follows the plot as the original version, but with a few new things.I'm not gonna say I hate "BREAKING DAWN - PART ONE", but I will say the theatrical version was too short, but the extended version feels like it's 124 minutes long and that's a good thing because I thought that the original version was way too short and it did not focus on the story a lot more.The extended cut really does give you more story, more character development and an alternate opening that was cut out in fear of an R rating.One thing that was really cool to see that me and my sister LeeAnn did not see in NEW MOON and ECLIPSE was hearing the werewolves including Leah, Seth, Sam and Jacob talk and when Sam and Jacob argue, he says "I will not kill Bella! I AM THE GRANDSON OF EPHRAIM BLACK! I AM THE GRANDSON OF A CHEAP! I WAS NOT BORN TO FOLLOW YOU OR ANYONE ELSE!".On top of that, we get to the one thing that almost threw me off and this was the birthing scene. Eventually, the birthing scene had a lot of controversy over because this was the most graphic thing in the book and this is why a lot of fans worried that the film was going to get an R rating, instead of the PG-13 rating, but they managed to show the whole pregnancy scene in the film from Bella's point-of-view. The film did actually get it's PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.Now, I get to the story. Out of all of the Twilight movies, BREAKING DAWN's two-part story is the most easiest to follow, but it is also the most emotional and darkest one in the series because the book is so dark and mature. I don't blame this story, but I think it's a very good thing to follow the story because if BREAKING DAWN was not into two parts and was released as a four to five hour long movie, me and my sister LeeAnn, who is a big Twilight and Vampire Diaries fan, would have fallen asleep because the film would have been too long, but as a movie presented in 2 parts, it is interesting and fantastic.The musical score composed by Carter Burwell is emotionally powerful and memorable and the songs in the movie are really cool to listen to. The only two songs in this film that I like is "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri and "It Will Rain" by Bruno Mars and I did saw the video. It is fantastic.Like I said in the first three reviews of TWILIGHT, the main cast is really phenomenal. The only new introduction in this film was Mackenzie Foy as Renesmee, who would later play in the 2014 film directed by Christopher Nolan, INTERSTELLAR.Overall, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 does get a little out-of-hand in some areas in the original version, the extended version gets a lot of stuff right and improves on everything from ECLIPSE and the first film.THEATRICAL / EXTENDED VERSION RATINGS: Because of the short run time and some of the good parts cut out, I'm giving the original version of BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 a 3.9 out of 10 stars.The extended cut was a lot more great in terms of story, character development, music and pacing, so I will give the extended version of BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 a perfect score of 10 out of 10 stars.

SnoopyStyle Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edwards (Robert Pattinson) get married gathering the disparate parts of their lives together. Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is not happy. On their honeymoon, Bella gets pregnant which is impossible. The baby grows abnormally fast and the wolf pack fears it as a threat.This is basically fan service. Of course, nobody has any reasons to watch this other than fans of the franchise. The first half hour is the wedding and it's not anything other than a few soap opera highlights. The second half hour is the honeymoon most notable for breaking the bed. When Bella gets pregnant, it becomes fully a soap opera. The baby is a little creepy like 'Rosemary's Baby'. This installment feels like it's mostly setting up for a big finale.

brchthethird At this point it is futile to quibble about the lack of character development, wooden acting and cliché dialogue. This doesn't make me some "Twi-hard", but I did find some enjoyment in this installment due to the utter ludicrousness of the plot and some truly hilarious moments. The first 30 minutes concerns itself with Edward and Bella's nuptials, and this was probably the worst part of the whole movie due to some extremely cringe-inducing, cliché-ridden dialogue. However, after that we get treated to the honeymoon which explores (in a chaste, PG-13 way) what it would be like for a vampire to have sex with a human. They don't just bang the headboard, they break the entire bed (technically, Edward does but whatever). Then, what follows is one of the most inexplicable pregnancies since the Virgin Birth, and seems to making a case against abortion. Admirable, but misguided. Anyway, the conflict that ensues over this vampire baby makes for some of the more melodramatic moments in the film. Obviously not competently handled, but interesting enough to watch unfold. However, the way in which it is resolved is head-scratchingly bizarre, yet completely expected if you've been paying attention before. I think that the only creepier thing than Edward grooming Bella for vampire-dom is Jacob imprinting on Renesmee, who is literally a baby. It couldn't get any more pedophilic than that, in my opinion. And somehow, because of the immutable werewolf law this solves the problem. Ridiculous, but kind of funny still. There's also a cheeky, yet ominous mid-credits scene which sets up the inevitable finale to come (but didn't Bella's eyes opening again already do that?). Anyway, the filmmaking quality here is the best yet in the series, with excellent cinematography and visual style to spare. Overall it's less awkward and overly "teenage" than its predecessors, probably due to the maturing of the subject matter. Flawed, but enjoyable enough for fans of the series.

Foreverisacastironmess Okay, so after quite a while between the movies I once again tentatively stepped into the world of Twilight, an unnervingly fake world, haunted by the soulless eyes of the damned... Nah, they're really not all that bad! I mean they're definitely far from good, but not absolutely awful and in my opinion not quite the apocalyptic motion picture triumphs of arrogance and self-absorption they're made out to be. I think a lot of people hate these so much because much like(totally unwarranted!) Howard the Duck, they're popular to hate. They're indeed freaking beyond pretentious and shallow, but they're also harmless and stupid, and a lot of fun to rag on. I rather enjoy their lousiness, they are very amusing! Like let's talk about the main heroine for a second, a major character whom I have not grown to like or give a crap about in four movies and counting.. There's nothing wrong with Bella, but what's right with her!? She's just constantly creating conflict with her mere presence and keeps playing the two guys off against each other, and why does she have to look so sad and disturbed all the time, even after she's just gotten married to the one she's supposed to love and they're driving away? She's so ridiculous, I do get that the character's meant to be awkward and a little strange, like perhaps she already has a little something supernatural in her somewhere, and I've heard one idiotic theory that she's supposed to be a sort of blank so that girls can imagine themselves in her shoes or something and that's cool, but I've seen other performances from actors who were playing it distant, cold and/or aloof who still managed to instill a little of their own personality into the role that made you care for them in some small way, or at least understand why they are how they are or do what they do, but I guess Kristen Stewart was too cool to bother with anything like that.. Gah, the bitch was wrong for the part! A damn piece of lumber would have made a better lead! I think it's her that really hurts this franchise the most. And Taylor Lautner is such an unremitting tool of a pathetic actor..and ugly, got a weird full-scale dwarf thing going on there.. He no good, no good at all! only thing that gets him by is that six-pack! I hope his career died with these films. And then there was that Edward, he was the same as always, so devoted, so bloated with misery and pathos, always holding himself with such ceaseless funereal leadenness. I like Ed, I think it's a good performance and he created a pretty interesting character. I really enjoyed the early flashback sequence that reveals some of his past, I always find that kind of stuff to be fairly cool in these films. And I liked when the wolves who I guess were the antagonists this time around, pull an Otis and Milo and talk to each other psychically, regarding what's to be done about a certain impending birth, quite a rousing scene. They never do quite get the CGI to look right on those things.. I also loved when they made Bella look all miserable and skinny like a crack addict, the visual effects of her deterioration were astonishing. I appreciated how they handled Bella becoming a vampire, I found it less disturbing there being no other choice to save her life, rather than it being him biting her neck in yet another romantic scene with the annoying music playing which wouldn't have felt right to me, as she was now 'technically' no longer alive and was a bloodless she-thing of the night. But hey, how was she all that different or worse-off than she was before? I enjoyed this one about the same as all the others, I have actually grown to somewhat like this universe and care a little about how it's all gonna turn out, but they never really change or evolve at all, it's just the same thing over and over, it always boils down to vampires against werewolves and the boring girl in the middle, whoever wins I'm vacuously thrilled and entertained. The biggest problem of this one for me was that although it had a plot, there was no story, and what little there was felt noticeably stretched-out to a crazy degree! They get married and have their honeymoon for a good forty+ minutes, she somehow gets pregnant and the magic accelerated birth causes her to slowly die, there's a lot of werewolf politics as the fuzzy-wuzzies for some reason fear the unnatural child and want to kill it even if they have to kill Bella in the process, there's oodles of the usual mundane talking with the three semi-developed characters, the lycanthropes and bloodsuckers have a little skirmish, the baby is born, but to save her life Edward has to transform Bella into a vampire, she awakens, pointless but awesome cameo of the evil vampire elders - that's it! That was quite the cliffhanger of an image to go out on, and a very nice change to the typical flowery scene of nauseating beautified bliss. So all in all, although to me like the rest it fails deliver satisfactorily in the end, the process getting there is a genuinely entertaining one. Bring on the Dawn...I look forward to it.