Crepúsculo, la saga: Amanecer (parte 1)

For those not familiar with the rules of the Official Twilight drinking game they are as follows.

Take a shot/sip when... 1. Someone says the word vampire or wolf or any variation including "newborns". 2. Whenever someone sparkles. 3. When the father appears in police uniform. 4. Whenever someone is brooding. 5. Whenever an obnoxious hipster indie song is being played in the background. 6. Whenever someone doesn't have his shirt on. 7. Whenever someone gives an unrealistically generous gift, does a foolishly gallant act or otherwise bends the rules of common sense for Bella.

Drink the rest of the bottle when... 1. Someone unattractive or out of shape is on screen. 2. Something in a scene makes you feel anything other than sleepiness or the need to plant your face in your hands.

Thus I delved into the world of Breaking Dawn Part 1. In this film, Edward and Bella take the plunge so she can become a vampire like she's always wanted. Jacob pisses and moans, and Bella has unprotected sex while still human resulting in her mutant baby trying to eat its way out of her womb. You know, true love and all that good stuff.

My roommate, whose expertise on Twilight I value as much as one reasonably can, filled in some of the holes that went unexplained or glossed over in the flick. Why can't they just turn her into a vampire while pregnant? Because it would kill the baby. Why is the act of sex with a vampire while human potentially deadly? Because their skins as hard as diamonds and they're super strong. How can these vampires live for eons amassing enough money to afford a private island off the coast of Brazil without the IRS at least knowing about it? And for that matter why would vampires want a vacation home in sunny Rio anyway? Just shut up and watch the movie!

My roommate did bring up an interesting notion that was not explained in the movie nor, she believes, explained in the book. How can they even have sex? Vampires have no pulse so they have no blood actually coursing through their veins. It only stands to reason that Edward can't get his little Dracula to stand at attention. So Bella is waiting to be turned, just so she can have human carnal knowledge of a cold corpse with a flaccid iditarod. Perhaps if you're being turned into a bloodsucker while you're performing (its been known to happen in vampire movies) then you'd have a fully erect projectile for always and forever but that would be a very inconvenient case of rigamortis. You'd never be able to wear mesh shorts, birds would always want to perch on you and all your vampire friends would always call you Vlad the Impaler. But on the positive side you'd actually achieve every pubescent boy's deep seeded fantasy; you could use you're dingus as a weapon!

Of course its all fun and games until someone gets pregnant. That's why its important kids, to make and keep important commitments to your loved ones. In this case, commit to spending the rest of eternity with a manipulative Gothic horror monster before getting jiggy with it or else be forced to drink O- slurpees while your ribcage and spine breaks from the force of your bloodthirsty monster child. By the way, the baby's name is Renesmee a mix of Bella's mother's name and the punchline of a cruel practical joke. The newborn is also imprinted by Jacob which is a way for a werewolf to leave his marking that disappointingly doesn't involve rising his hind legs.

In the end, Breaking Dawn Part 1 is a vapid, stupid, glacierly paced movie with very little going for it other than the welcome sight of Bella withering away. So its a substantial improvement from the rest of the series. I actually look forward to the next and hopefully final chapter in the franchise. Maybe if I get liquored up before the premiere (or during), I would only remember the good parts, like the credits.

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I like twilight. i wouldn't say i LOVE it, but i found the books to be amusing, warm and a good time waster. The movies seem to be more about capitalising on funds rather than delivering a decent plot.

i've never been a fan of Kristin Stewart (insipid droning teenager that she is in all of the movieS) but she actually appears to present somewhat of a decent acting skill in this movie, whereas cold, boring edward (who in the books was a heart-throb) is just as terribly pathetic as he was in the previous movies. The man that has stolen the show, taylor lautner, since he took his shirt off in the second movie was pushed into the background a little bit in this movie, which i think was the worst thing they could have done. but, in the same token, they had to do as its a love story between edward and bella, not bella and jacob. I'm just a little disappointed by the way they've dragged this on. but i was disappointed by the books towards the end too.

We took our whole office at the penrith professionals and there were mixed reviews. The oldies hated it, the middle agers (who knew the basic plot line of the movie) found it a nice romance but fairly boring and the young girls loved it for the sheer fact it was twilight.

I wouldn't see it again, thats for sure.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The fourth film in the mega-popular series has Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella (Kristen Stewart) getting married and shortly afterwards the female virgin becomes pregnant, which could cause her death, which doesn't sit too well with werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Obviously a 32-year-old male isn't the target viewer for this film but I must admit that it was a major step up from the previous two installments. I might even go as far to say that this here was the best of the series in a bad way. I say that because I'm sure teenage girls will be weeping all over themselves through the first hour of this thing but, as an adult, I couldn't help but laugh at it. The first hour deals with the screen's most popular duo getting married and of course the girl losing her virginity. I know this is a big thing to Twi-hards and teenage girls but the execution here is just laughable and especially the moments leading up to the act. The entire thing is just directed so over-dramatic that I couldn't help but laugh. It also didn't help that the dialogue was just downright awful and at times embarrassing. With that said, these bad moments actually make the film rather entertaining. Both Pattinson and Stewart are pros at these characters by now and it's also clear that Lautner continues to work out and this must cause him to skip his acting classes. As usual the CGI is pretty bad but I guess this is to be expected. Still, I found the story to be rather compelling and the entire thing kept me entertained from start to finish. Yes it drags on too long but you have to admit there's some pretty weird stuff going on here and especially during the second half.

There is not much happening altogether in this film. They put way too much focus on the wedding and the honeymoon, thus wasting precious time. But I guess all those teenage girl fans wanted a full portrayal of the big romantic wedding.

In all of the previous films, I liked the acting of most of the cast a lot. But in this film, everyone except Bella, Edward & Jacob is marginalised to such an extent that there cannot be much said about them. As an audience you just don't get to see enough of any of them to really develop a connection with or care about them.

Altogether this is an OK addition to the franchise, by no means worse than the disappointing/confusing 2nd or 3rd films. I assume I will give this film either a 5 or a 6 (out of 10), but I think I will withhold my final vote until I have seen part 2. I know some might say that they are released as separate films and therefore should be treated as such, but as the original book is ripped into two halves here, I think it is fair to reserve the final judgement until I have seen the two films in conjunction (seeing that, as I haven't read the books, I will need to have seen both films in order to make sense of it all).

Victoria is dead, there is no longer any threat to Bella. So she and Edward get married, while on their honeymoon they do the dirty deed and oops, Bella gets pregnant. Vampire pregnant, which means the fetus is growing at 5 times the normal rate and is killing her from within. The wolf clan cannot have this, as it breaks their treaty somehow and they come to kill the baby. Now Jacob must team up with the people he hates, the Cullens, in order to protect Bella.

While this premise does sound interesting, it's a shame that the producers wanted to milk this poorly conceived franchise for every penny they can get. Instead of making one film, they split the story into two and Breaking Dawn Part 1 clearly suffers from over stuffing and filler. Nothing happens until the last twenty minutes of the film. We know they get married, we know they have sex and we know she gets pregnant. It takes way too long to get these plot points across. The wedding, the honeymoon and the pregnancy could have all happened in the first 30 minutes, but it's instead stretched to an obscene length.

Books have more room to breath. The world is created an the writer has hundreds of pages to tell their story. Films don't have this luxury, so when a film comes out based on a book, you need to chop out the stuff that's simply not needed or wouldn't translate well to the screen. Since the people behind this film want to make more money, they split the last film into two. WB did the same for Harry Potter, but I can forgive them because there is actual story to tell in that film, here there is nothing. She doesn't get pregnant until 50 minutes into the film. Which means we are stuck with boring characters either being jealous of what others have (Jacob) or two people having sex over and over (Edward/Bella). The amount of time that was dedicated to the honeymoon is insane. What should have been a ten minute sequence, at most, takes about 30 minutes of screen time.

Once Bella starts dying, the film tries to get into motion, but it's too late. When she goes into labor, that's when something finally interesting happens and the rest of the film makes for some of the most thrilling moments in the entire series. A standoff between the Cullens and the wolves is finally shown here, something that people have been waiting for since the first film. The tension between the two families finally explodes. This is exciting stuff, this is what people have been waiting for, but the film still suffers from bad CGI work when humans interact with the wolves. So the fight sequences, as exciting as they are, never really reach their full potential.

The final frame of the film is so obvious half way through that I actually chuckled to myself when it happened. I still can't shake the feeling that the conflict of the whole series finished with Eclipse and what we have left is an overstretched denouement. Am I excited for the next film? Not really. Half the job of Part 1 is to get you excited for the next, this film fails horribly at that. What's left to happen? An after the credits sequences is shown where we are given a glimpse of what to expect, but I'm too far drawn away from the conflict by that point.

Breaking Dawn is not the worst in the series, but clearly not the best. Had the film been one piece instead of two, then it would have been exciting. The simple fact that it drags on for so long is proof that splitting the film in two was a mistake, creatively. Financially, it's smart. Because young teenage girls will flock to anything, case in point -- this entire series.