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November 21, 2011
All mediocre Hollywood movies are alike; each unspeakably awful Hollywood movie is unspeakably awful in its own way.
That’s what makes “Breaking Dawn — Part 1” so special.
Everything about the film — the surprisingly inept direction, the near-constant Lifetime special soundtrack, the exasperatingly solemn acting — comes together to form a sort of perfect objet’d artlessness.
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But it would be unfair not to mention what the filmmakers got right: Knowing their audience.
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The constant sparring between Taylor Lautner’s Jacob and Robert Pattinson’s Edward elicits ample reaction from viewers who notice it and haven’t been facepalming for the entire film.
We get more shirtless Pattinson than Lautner this time around, which surely pleased about half the series’ fan base. (Exact numbers on the respective sizes of teams Jacob and Edward were not available at press time.)
This must be what draws the crowds in droves.
Surely it can’t be the huge cast of side characters, who fall into one of two camps: Vampires and werewolves or family and friends of Bella Swan.
They’re all pretty much the same, it’s just that the vampires have red eyes (really, does no one notice that?); the werewolves don’t wear shirts that often; and the normal humans just seem clueless most of the time. I have to admit, though, I kind of like Bella’s dad, despite his near lack of identity aside from poor-man’s Josh Brolin-ness.
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Surely people aren’t coming to see director Bill Condon toss away his dignity like a rain-soaked Jacob t-shirt. Where’s the flair of “Chicago” in this mostly lifeless, formless exercise of fan service?
He’s unable to shape the material into a compelling story. It’s got to be at least a half-hour in before the movie even starts feeling like a movie and not one of those “last time on…” TV-show intros.
The one bit of fun is a brief montage of Bella trying to lure a contrite Edward into having sex (there’s some weird stuff I won’t get into) complete with oh-so-subtle shots of the two playing chess in their postcard-worthy Brazilian honeymoon beach house.
You know you’re in trouble when a scene one might describe as McConaughey-ian comes as a relief.
And the fans can’t be coming to see Kristen Stewart be brooding and emotionally torn and confused and pale (and she gets paler, too!). Not to mention her long withering-away into a skeleton under the stress of a vampiric pregnancy.
In fact, this film could be one hell of a weapon against teen pregnancy: See girls, your baby loves you, but it will kill you!
In any case, there’s something irresistible about these films for a large segment of the population, and I will not begrudge their enthusiasm for them. If this is for girls and women what “Transformers” and “300” are for the boys and grown boys that Hollywood usually spends millions upon millions to cater to, that’s great.
I’ll always have fun marveling at wildly bad movies whether it’s our testosterone or estrogen the filmmakers are trying to get pumping.
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