The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part II (2012)
Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, and Michael Sheen
Directed by Bill Condon
I'd rather director Bill Condon had relished in the kookiness of vampire-werewolf relations as he did in Part 1 of this epic finale, but instead he's forced to tackle the conclusion of The Twilight Saga which deals with the Volturi headed by Aro (Michael Sheen) who want to kill Renesmee because they believe she is an immortal vampire child. Vampire children are untrainable and thus will wreak havoc by making vampires more visible to humans in some way. Therefore, for centuries the Volturi have been killing vampiric kids and murdering their parents who sired them. However, Renesmee is not an immortal because she was born from vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) and now-vampire-but-formerly-human-and-human-when-she-gave-birth Bella. Pretty much the entirety of the film is Edward, Bella, and the rest of the Cullen clan bringing together "witnesses" who can attest to the Volturi that Renesmee is not an immortal and thus causes no threat to their secretive civilization. This assembly of fellow vampires may play like a Who's Who for the Twilight fans, but to this reviewer, he didn't understand why we were wasting so much time listening to these people talk about their problems as if they mattered in the grand scheme of the plot because they didn't in the slightest.
This all leads to the big standoff between the Volturi and the Cullen-led "witnesses" in which a lot of vampire's heads are decapitated (seriously, there's more disembodiments here than in any movie I've ever seen). But, in the big surprise twist (and I'm gonna reveal it here because I have to discuss how ludicrous the finale is), the big showdown actually doesn't happen. In fact, it was all playing out in the mind of Aro who was magically "touched" by one of the Cullen clan and was able to see the future which didn't pan out too well for his fellow Volturi. Instead, Aro decides to quietly leave, therein creating perhaps one of the biggest letdowns in the history of movies. Five movies and nearly ten hours of film lead to people walking away from each other rather than fighting for what they believe in. You've got to be kidding me, right? Come to find out, this whole fight scene was added just for the movie -- it wasn't even in the book. What was the point of the books then?
Good Lord, what a horrible way to end a horrible cinematic series. I won't even delve into criticizing Kristen Stewart or Robert Pattinson because I've done enough of that in previous reviews of the series (and, actually, they were their best in this two-part finale which isn't saying much). What I don't understand at the end of this whole series is why these books became such a huge pop culture obsession. I guess it's that "love triangle" aspect, but the screenplays of these movies lack any modicum of fun or excitement and the finale proved to end things on a huge sour note. Thankfully, I won't ever need to venture near these movies ever again.
The RyMickey Rating: D+
Previous Entries in the Series
Eclipse -- C-
New Moon -- D-
Twilight -- C-
I'm actually frightened by how highly I've rated the series as a whole...
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