FILM REVIEW: Breaking Dawn Part 1.

 Breaking Dawn Part 1.


Twilight is a phenomenon that has spread across the globe with frightening speed and whether or not you were caught in the vampire storm, you're sure to have heard of Edward Cullen, Bella Swan, and Jacob Black. (If you haven't ... you must've been living under a rock.) Twilight has always puzzled me because the books aren't that good, the movies aren't that good, and the characters aren't that likeable, and yet I still found myself riding the wave of Twilight hysteria. There's just something about them. Perhaps it's Edward's sparkling skin that has dazed teenage girls all around the globe, who knows.
Breaking Dawn Part 1 was split into two movies because there was just too much action in the novel and it couldn't be translated to screen within two hours. Or that's what they said. I think what they really meant was: 'Harry Potter did it, so we're going to try and be cool and copy them'. No. Just no. Not cool Twilight, not cool. Whilst there has been a long standing Harry Potter-Twilight debate, there really is no competition. The story of the boy who lived captured hearts around the globe and the world had never seen a story like it. Twilight on the other hand, is misconstrued as the story that started the vampire phenomenon, when, in fact, the truth lies far from this. Take The Vampire Diaries as an example: The Vampire Diaries and Twilight have quite a lot in common, both involve hot teen vampires intent on staying on the straight and narrow, both involve vampire-human relationships, and both involve complicated love triangles (a love arrowhead would actually be a better description). However, what a large percentage of the world doesn't know, is that The Vampire Diaries came first, in fact it was published fourteen years prior to the publication of Twilight.

Breaking Dawn got a lot, and I mean a lot, of bad reviews, but it really wasn't that bad.  To be fair I used to be absolutely obsessed with Twilight so I'm not exactly unbiased but my obsession has almost died away and I still thought the movie was alright. It did take my quite by surprise though because it was really quite a graphic movie, at least it suggested, and sometimes showed, many horrific things. In the UK the film is rated as a 12, but I firmly disagree with this and think that it should be made a 15 - people in America were having seizures! I think that says enough. Another thing - Edward breaks the bed. I highly doubt many parents of 12 year olds really want to explain to their children why he broke the bed.


The film starts with Bella's marriage to Edward Cullen. Then, of course, they fly off to Rio for their romantic honeymoon and everything is well until Bella realises that she's two weeks late. Bella and Edward clearly hadn't been using contraception as they didn't believe that vampire/human babies were even possible. Much to Edward's displeasure, Bella decides to keep the baby; however, the vampire-human hybrid growing inside of Bella is a lot stronger than she is and so she goes through much pain and discomfort and her life is endangered. When the wolf pack hears about Bella's pregnancy, they decide it is a threat to humanity and it must be killed. Jacob, still in love with Bella, cannot accept this and breaks away from the wolf pack. For those of you who don't already know how the story goes, I won't ruin it for you, but for people who've already read the book, I'd say it's pretty obvious where the cut off point for Breaking Dawn part 1 is.


One thing the movie did for me, was it highlighted the ludicrousness of some of the things that happen in the book. When you're in the 'twilight' zone and getting into the story, you sort of go with the flow and everything seems normal, but when someone actually says the lines outloud, you realise how ridiculous they are. For example, Bella's decision to name her daughter Renesmee if it's a girl, and Edcob if it's a boy seems stupid in the book, but you soon get used to it; however, when Bella actually voices these thoughts out loud, I could only laugh and laugh and laugh. Edcob? Seriously?! It is unclear whether or not this was intentional or not, but Breaking Dawn was quite a funny movie. In fact, it sort of reminded me of Hot Fuzz, because the genre was sort of comedy mixed with horror.


So onto the horror. There are some truly, truly, disturbing scenes in Breaking Dawn, so if you're even vaguely squeamish it would probably be best if you brought a pillow to hide behind. I love horror movies, but, not gonna lie, Breaking Dawn had some freaky s*** in it. Towards the end of the movie, there is a lot of blood, Bella turns into what can only be described as an actual skeleton and then there's the actual birthing scene. Oh the horror. Those who've read the book will know that Edward rips the baby out of Bella - using his teeth. Sure, that's fairly disturbing to read, but actually seeing RPattz with blood all round his mouth holding a bloody baby will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

The aftermath of a naughty night

As expected, the acting was horrendous. No matter how good a person is at acting, I think that when they're cast into a movie like Twilight, they leave all their talent behind. I have seen many other films and television shows that the cast of Twiligt have starred in so I know that they're all very talented and it is a shame that they weren't able to showcase their talents.

I can't really say whether or not I would recommend this to others because I think this is just one of those movies that people will love or hate and almost everybody will already have preconceptions of it. If you're already a twilight fan, then you're almost certainly going to go down to the cinema to watch it this holiday, but brace yourselves for what you will see. If you haven't watched the previous Twilight movies, then this is definitely the wrong one to start with and it will give you completely the wrong impression of the Twilight Saga. If you've seen the other movies, but you don't know what's going to happen in Breaking Dawn, then you're in for a show! Despite it's bad reviews, I still found Breaking Dawn a fairly entertaining, humorous, though slightly disturbing film.