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LYT Review: “Twilight” Finale Breaks Like the Wind

Kristen Stewart leaping into the air and tearing out the throat of a mountain lion with her teeth. Yelling “You nicknamed my daughter after THE LOCH NESS MONSTER?” at Taylor Lautner. Dakota Fanning casually tossing a small child onto a bonfire. The gay panic that ensues when Jacob strips down in front of Bella’s dad before showing off his wolf transformation. The fact that one of the vampires’ powers is an evil “paralyzing vapor” (bonus points for it being Cameron Bright, the weird kid from movies like Godsend and Ultraviolet, now a creepy teen). The way vampires casually twist each others’ heads off in battle like they’re all Worzel Gummidge (congratulate yourself if you catch that reference). Bella and Edward zooming through the forest at a breakneck pace like speeder bikes through Endor. Michael Sheen’s insane giggle. These are some of the moments in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 that caused me to crack a smile, at the very least. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but director Bill Condon is the only helmer in the franchise’s history to understand that you can make a decent barbecue sandwich with any cut of pig, provided you overcook it and add enough Cheez Whiz.

Treating the material with all the seriousness it deserves, which is to say absolutely none, Condon already elevated Part 1 to the minor camp that was a significant improvement over all prior attempts to be deathly earnest about sparkling vampires with multiple-choice vampire superpowers. Honestly, if Stephenie Meyer had simply called them mutants or aliens instead, there’d be less fuss – the blood drinking is barely relevant, and the sheer number of characters with different abilities who show up for the grand finale make this feel like a dumber version of an X-Men sequel. At least when we men alter vampire stories that extensively in the other direction, removing the romance and keeping only the biting and undead ugliness, we have the decency to call them something different… you know, zombies.

“I still hate surprises – that hasn’t changed!” exclaims Bella (Stewart) shortly before being given a fully loaded house totally free, and demonstrating exactly why the fan base relates – they, too, appear to love the predictable. And I mean that literally, as early on in the story, we get a genuine psychic prediction that the dictatorial Volturi are on their way to make trouble for Bella, Edward and baby Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy and some digital effects), and then spend the rest of the movie waiting around for that inevitable event to happen. In the meantime, our heroes… wait for it… recruit witnesses. That’s right: basically the entire plot of the movie is the equivalent of serving subpoenas, all around the world, as needlessly narrated in voice-over by Bella. Bring on the drunk Irish vampires, the New Orleans Anne Rice wannabe rock star vampires, the Amazon-dwelling vampires (always accompanied by tribal drumming on the soundtrack, natch), the stereotypical Eastern European vampires, the Egyptian weather-controlling vampires (ever think about giving that desert a little more rain, fellas?), the crazy Alaskan vampires (insert former V.P. candidate joke there if you so choose), and more.

Oh, but don’t worry – there’s time for Bella and Edward to have PG-13 sex. The bed gets off a lot easier than before. There’s a lot of time, actually, and all the better to hear the multiple terrible romantic pop songs crammed on the soundtrack in order to sell CDs. Plus there’s a moment that feels like a massive in-joke for K-Stew haters, in which the newly vampirized Bella has to be taught how to act like a real human being.

And let us not forget the super-creepy Jacob-Renesmee relationship, in which, having “imprinted,” the ab-licious young man is now destined to go from being the infant child’s bodyguard/babysitter to her lover when she reaches the ripe old accelerated-maturity age of… seven. C’mon, Stephenie Meyer, it never occurred to you that this was just the least bit creepy? As is Jacob’s excuse that he can’t help how he is, something pedophiles also say? Have to admit, in an age of Hollywood unoriginality, I’ve never before seen an onscreen love triangle conclude by having one of the participants say he was never really in love with the girl anyway – it was in fact an attraction to her unborn daughter that hadn’t even been conceived yet! So props for that, maybe? Ick. Not that Edward can really morally object to this path for his child; he is, after all, a hundred-plus year-old dude who knocked up a high-school chick.

To Condon’s credit, he concludes things with a bang, turning what might have felt like a cheat in another movie into a way to give fans a cinematically satisfying conclusion while honoring Meyer’s anticlimactic fizzle at the same time. Whether you love the series or hate it, the battle sequence that the posters allude to is one at least worth a watch on cable someday, as well as the most male-friendly moment of the whole shebang. All I’ll offer in terms of detail is this: Edward and Bella finally bring it like the pro-wrestling tag team they were meant to be, with double-finishers worthy of the Hart Foundation, or perhaps more fittingly the Rock and Sock Connection. Just one question: how did all those Volturi get from Italy to the Pacific Northwest in  their giant vampire robes without arousing suspicion? Did they just take one large flying leap right over the Atlantic (which would be as plausible as anything else in this universe)? Take a private jet? Given how long it takes them to show up, perhaps they were on a boat.

There seems to have been an overall lowering of critical standards when it comes to Twilight, one that perhaps I’ve fallen into – after hating the first one, I do try to give credit where it’s due, but let’s get real: you could shoot two straight hours of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner breaking wind, call it Twilight, and fans would still love it. So there’s no need to tailor a review to the base unless you’re going to gush, and maybe you’ve guessed by now that I’m not. The bottom line is that it isn’t a very good movie, but there is plenty of fun to be had with it: some laughs are intentional, others not, and different audience members may find different reasons to cheer for certain characters to get their comeuppances. I know this movie wasn’t made for me; if you’re not a hardcore fan, it probably wasn’t made for you either.

Unless you’re a stoner. Because in that case, I suspect it totally was.

And now it’s over. Here’s hoping the next big thing is more fun.

Just so you know, my very brief takes on the others in the series for comparison:

Twilight: Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

New Moon: Not too bad once you accept the absurd premise. More cinematically thought-out than I expected. Also has the best “sparkly vampire” effects, by a freakin’ longshot.

Eclipse: Crap. Wants to be two different movies; succeeds at neither. Decent tries at comedic banter.

Breaking Dawn Part 1: Corpse cake, Bride of Frankenstein flashback, talking wolves, Edward’s housekeeper, bloody birth – I genuinely liked it. Still the best of the bunch.

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Comments

  1. Viktor Walters says:

    Don’t get me wrong, I get that there’s a target demographic. Neither am I saying that the whole review is calling out women or whatever. Still doesn’t mean I can’t resent the implication that we men “do it better” or anything like that. Or that “male friendly” moments suddenly shine in comparison to the rest of the trash.

  2. Chris says:

    The review doesn’t say that the female element is the problem. It says what we all know; this movie, like all the rest of the Twilight movies, is a crap movie tailored to a female teenager’s interests and makes little to no sense whatsoever. It is what it is. It is full of plotholes, the action is silly, the writing is atrocious, the actors are in place for their looks more than their talent, and the overall storyline is ridiculous. It’s a Micheal Bay movie for teenage girls. Period.

    That said, my daughter likes it so i have to watch it.

  3. Viktor Walters says:

    @Marela
    Believe me, I have much more important things to be offended about. I’m not so much offended by this as I just tend to call bullshit when I see it.

    I dunno, I just don’t think that it’s a tasteful point to make. Sure, Twilight has a demographic that it targets but the real problem is just the horrible writing. There are men and teen boys out there who like this crap too. Nevermind that there are also good, well-written “chick flicks” or whatever you’d like to call it out there so it’s not exactly fair to claim the female element is the problem.

    The fact that bad writing is associated with female writers/female audiences is just a sad thing in and of itself. It speaks to an overall horrible popular attitude towards the subject.

  4. Marela says:

    @Viktor Walters
    Oh please, go find something real to be offended about.. Of course this series was created by women and for women.. And if it wasn’t for teen girls there would not even be a second movie.. So the femininity it caters to is a huge part of the problem with this piece of crap..

  5. Mary says:

    Hey don’t blame women for this crap. I’m one and my life was a whole lot better without sparkly gits too. Let’s just all agree that there’s a lot of woefully bad writing, acting and film making out there and leave it at that.

  6. Viktor Walters says:

    @LYT

    Couldn’t really find your other reviews on the subject so I’m not sure if you were doing a schtick… but.

    “We men”?

    “Male friendly”?

    It feels like you’re implying that the problem with Twilight is that it lacks masculinity? Or that it caters to femininity? Which is kind of wow. Are you really saying that if only Stephanie Meyer were a man, Twilight would have been better? Because that’s what I’m getting from that. I wonder if you see why that could be, I dunno, really distasteful?

    I think we can both agree that the terribleness of Twilight crosses all gender boundaries.

  7. Michelle says:

    “At least when we men alter vampire stories that extensively in the other direction, removing the romance and keeping only the biting and undead ugliness, we have the decency to call them something different… you know, zombies.”

    not really … I think 30 Days of Night was still pitched as a ‘vampire’ movie 🙂

  8. three toes of fury says:

    .
    soooo you didnt like Skyfall…. but found there was “alot of fun to be had” with Twilight?! okaaaaaaaay….thats…umm…well…it is what it is.

    As it appears our movie reviews will be opposites going forward, i predict you will find a bunch of faults with the Hobbit and Django Unchained.

    Peace & Raising Money for to help clothe the Constantly Shirtless Werewolf Foundation

    3ToF.

    #ribbing-meant-in-good-fun

  9. Bo Dixen Pedersen says:

    Should be interesting what Mark Kermode thinks about the end of The Twilight Saga.

    He’s a great movie Twilight apologist.

    And a part of the best movie podcast in the world: Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Reviews on BBC Radio 5.