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Review: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Unfilmable and inscrutable
By ANN LEWINSON  |  November 22, 2011
1.0 1.0 Stars

How do you film Stephenie Meyer's unfilmable Breaking Dawn? Bill Condon, the Oscar-winner who directs the penultimate installment in the series, doesn't even try. Instead, he delivers a movie so expurgated that some scenes will be inscrutable to those who haven't slogged through the novel. Condon plays Bella's violent wedding night with abstinence-poster vamp Edward (Robert Pattinson) for morning-after laughs, and makes a barely anesthetized C-section look not so bad. In between, friends try to talk Bella (Kristen Stewart) out of having a baby that will kill her, and Stewart does a Christian Bale; images of her skeletal frame on the operating table will surely become staples of pro-ana sites. A wolf council with dubbed growls may be the most ludicrous scene of the year, but a rumble with chic vampires punching CGI werewolves comes close. At least Michael Sheen's intercredit scene promises that Part 2 will be more fun.

Related: Review: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Review: The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Review: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Movie Reviews, werewolves, vampires
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ARTICLES BY ANN LEWINSON
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