Breaking Dawn Part 1

Year: 2011
Director: Bill Condon
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed


Plot: The Twilight saga continues. Bella and Edward get married. However, her unexpected motherhood bring huge complications between the Cullens and Jacob's pack.


Review: I know a lot of people have buried the Twilight films over the years, for good reasons. Personally I thought it had its own potential to be entertaining, and even then I wished they had stopped adapting the novels after Eclipse. Eclipse had a perfect ending to a saga that has seen a lot of happenings.

But Hollywood won't turn away from an opportunity to make more money, so here we go with Breaking Dawn, the first of two parts. Storywise, Breaking Dawn is much weaker than its predecessors, since there is a lack of villains here, any good ones anyway. Bill Condon however deserves credit for making the film flow smoothly and not dwelling on the love factor too much, which has always been the worst thing about the Twilight films.

But the lack of villains means a lack of action, which this film sorely needs to be entertaining. Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg thus has to resort to making the script entertaining and funny, which only works about half the time. The cheesy lines are still there, though like I mentioned earlier, thankfully kept to a minimum.

The cast perform just about average as always. Stewart is a lot less dramatic this time around thankfully, leaving the emotional moments to her two suitors, Pattinson and Lautner. Lautner especially has to do a lot of drama here, and to me he still needs a bit more work on his acting. Billy Burke shines again as Bella's dad, getting the best lines in the film.

Sadly, the local censors took out a lot from this film, probably to make sure it gets the PG13 rating the film needs to draw its teen fans over. (Isn't it sad that our PG13 rating is more strict than the US PG13?) Thus we Malaysians don't get to see the much talked about birth scene, which I hear has made people puke due to red and white lights flashing. What the heck?

To sum it up, Breaking Dawn Part 1 isn't necessary to adapt to celluloid because it is now bordering on ridiculousness. But who knows, Part 2 might make up for its shortcomings, especially with a very welcome epilogue featuring the Volturi. (3/5)