This Thanksgiving, I was thankful that I got to see Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1. I was also thankful that one of the people who worked at the theater told us to stick around for the credits, but I'll get to that later.
Where to begin? Well, first of all, I'm not a Twilight fan. In fact, I went to this movie hoping for a good laugh, and it didn't disappoint. It had the usual characteristics of the other Twilight movies. The bland acting, Kristin Stewart looking nauseous, Taylor Lautner with his shirt off. Yes, it had all of those. And yet, it had more.
First off, the theme this time around was sex. I know, the whole point of Twilight is sexual tension, the theme of abstinence and all that. Well now the waiting was over, and the the filmmakers didn't want you to forget it. There's a joke about Edward being a virgin (5 min in), someone saying during a toast at the wedding that Bella "won't get too much sleep the next few nights", and then off course Bella going through the film cliche getting ready for sex routine (brush teeth and hair, shave, etc). She tries to seduce Edward with lingerie, has a sexy dream, and ends up pregnant. All signs point to sex. And yet, it wasn't a very sex-positive movie. The whole point of the film (SPOILERS!!!!!) is that Bella gets pregnant with a vampire/human hybrid and almost ends up losing her life because of it. So basically I learned that if you find a handsome guy you really want to have sex with but still wait for a few years until after you are legally married, you will still have to pay the ultimate price for your lust and have a demon baby inside of you which will kill you. Wow, Eve's curse much? This whole movie was like the story of Bluebeard or those other cautionary fairy tales which were made up to make sure that girls kept their virginity. I mean, Bella had the upper hand was actually the sex aggressor, but then the baby snaps her spine like a twig and she almost dies. Girl power!
That was the one thing that really irked me on a conscious level, and the rest of the movie was just hilarious. The acting is bad. Like, really bad. It goes beyond Robert Pattinson saying his lines like he's half asleep. One of the wolf pack, Seth, was truly horrible. I wanted to Blue Skidoo into the film and smack him every time he opened his mouth. And then there was the fact that Jacob "imprinted" on Bella's baby, thereby making it immune to attack from any other werewolves. As Edward explains it, when a werewolf imprints, the others can't hurt it, and this is the only law that the werewolves truly uphold. Well, considering that the last half hour or so of the movie was the werewolves scheming to kill the baby, Bella, or both, I'm inclined to say that the werewolves are upholding the law of plot convenience. Clearly Stephanie Meyer couldn't think of a better way to resolve the issue. I know, it's supposed to be romantic and all that jazz because Jacob can finally stop whining over Bella, but I was actually snickering at this point.
Stephanie Meyer's inability to resolve issues crops up another time when Carlisle, Esmee, and Emmett (Edwards adopted father, mother, and brother) are forced to break through the line of ravenous werewolves in order to go hunting and get Bella the blood her baby craves (just go with me on this). Jacob distracts his former pack-mates long enough for the trio to escape and then everything is hunky dory. Um, what about when they come back? Are the werewolves okay with the vampires coming back but not leaving? Was Jacob going to distract them again? How would that work? WHY DON'T THESE MOVIES FOLLOW ANY SEMBLANCE OF LOGIC!?!
The cherry on top of this sundae was the scene they snuck after the credits. I am so glad that the theater employee told us to stay, because it was a train wreck. Bella had just turned into a vampire and the credits rolled. And then the Big Bad Vampire clan, the Volturi pop up in their lair. There is one who looks like Sméagol, another who looks like Fabio, and then Antony from Sweeny Todd (no, I'm serious). Through my inner rendition of "I Feel You Joanna", I hear the Volturi learn that Bella has been turned, although now they are after her baby. The acting is so over the top and I almost wet my pants when vampire Sméagol said that this went beyond the matter of a "mere hew-man". He sounded like a Ferrengi from Star Trek! Dear god, it was terrible.
I guess I should throw in that the visual effects for the movie were alright. The wolves up close looked pretty cool and Bella turning looked pretty good. However, I doubt that becoming a vampire suddenly means that you are wearing eyeshadow, but what do I know. Also, it sort of looked like the opening to Fight Club for me, but I was probably trying to remember what a good movie looks like at that point.
All in all, Breaking Dawn Part 1 lived up to my expectations....that it was going to suck. If you hate Twilight, go see this movie.
(image from here)
"This whole movie was like the story of Bluebeard or those other cautionary fairy tales which were made up to make sure that girls kept their virginity."
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, my mum didn't want my sister watching the first Twilight movie because she thought it was promoting teenage sex. *facepalm*
If you didn't already see it, AlterNet has an interesting article about Breaking Dawn: http://www.alternet.org/sex/153158/the_bloody%2C_twisted%2C_inverted_world_of_twilight%3A_violent_vampire_sex%2C_demon-babies_and_overwhelming_female_desire
ReplyDeleteAlso, one of Yudkowsky's fellow Less Wrong bloggers was inspired by Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality to write a rationalist version of Twilight: http://luminous.elcenia.com/about.shtml. I haven't read it yet, but the mere fact that it exists is making my brain break.