Monday, November 21, 2011

BREAKing Dawn. Broken. My review (part 1)

Fact 1: I read the entire Twilight Saga at least four times, and certain books even more than that.

Fact 2: Regarding the movies, I loved New Moon, liked Eclipse a lot, but I hated the Twilight movie.  I felt that the director, Catherine Hardwick, ruined it in every way possible.

Fact 3: I think that the Breaking Dawn Part 1 movie made the Twilight movie seem pretty decent.

The opening scenes includes the beautiful Jacob ripping off his shirt and turning in to Jacob-Wolf.  Considering that it was the only shirtless scene, it was a little too shaky and a lot too quick. Yes, it was the only shirtless scene.  Why were the wolves always fully clothed? They were always shirtless in New Moon and Eclipse, why ruin that streak of pure-brown-gorgeousness?

The first vampire scene is pretty light and cutesy, with the Cullens carrying various pieces of furniture and tree trunks around the yard to set up for the wedding.  I like this scene because it seems candid and not like the room is about to explode with awkward tension.  There was enough of said awkward tension in the next scene in Bella's bedroom.  It's the night before the wedding and Bella and Edward and having their moment.  Between the story that Edward tells Bella about what a monster he used to be (and giving us the forced-visual of his mouth oozing with bad-man blood), the background music, and the horrible emotionless close-up stare down of Bella's face, it was a bad soap intensified.  I can see that they were probably going for a romantic scene showing that Bella is committed to Edward forever, and that she is aware that she will be some monster when she turns to vamp-hood. But the MUSIC. It was supposed to be background music but it was MUCH too high and would not fade in to the background. I was just about to look past the loud music until Emmitt shows up in Bella's window "hanging on" to the window frame.  Yes that is what is supposed to happen, but did it NEED to look like he was being held up on a wire, unable to hold his body still? Probably not. Corny scene number 1.

Wedding day.  The wedding was beautiful when we could see it.  It felt like it took way too long for Bella to walk a short distance down the aisle, but we really don't know how long the aisle was because most of the shots were a close-up of her (once again) emotionless face. Sorry, it wasn't "emotionless", it was full of emotion. I'd say those emotions were "trying too hard", "fake crying", "suffocating", and "burning alive".  Wasn't she supposed to be nervous yet incredibly happy? Edward's facials were great for once.  He looked so happy that was about to jump out of his skin.  I think he even smirked at a point, and I know that is something that you for real can't help but do when you're just so HAPPY.

My favorite part of the movie was actually the wedding toasts.  It was added in for the movie (not in the book), and it was light and comical, especially Emmitt's snide comments about not getting much sleep anymore (which only the vampires and werewolves could fully understand correctly), and Charlie's reminder that he can shoot a gun.

Jacob shows up at the wedding and it's basically a scene out of the book, with the exception that Sam and the others were supposed to be in the woods as WOLVES just incase Jacob lost his cool.  Instead, they all came out of hiding as men. If a fight broke out between wolves and vamps right there, the wolves are powerless in their human form against vamps.  That's actually a point that bothers me a lot; the wolves are too-often HUMAN.  If there was no dialog, they should be wolves.  There was no problem with them being wolves in Eclipse.

Anyways it's OFF TOO THE HONEYMOON, and yeah-yeah-yeah, it matches the book and she seems nervous and all is fine.  Fine but not GREAT.  Except the scene when Bella is all nervous about her night with Edward.  He has gone out to the ocean, naked, and she is trying to mentally prepare herself. It's a funny scene and I like it because, just like the opening vamp scene, it seems candid.  Okay so the obvious comes next.  WEDDING NIGHT.  The sex scene is a okay, again with the BAD music though, and it's just a little awkward.  When Edward broke the headboard, and then the whole bed frame, the audience LAUGHED! Pretty funny.

No comments:

Post a Comment