BREAKING DAWN PART 1 (Bill Condon)

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Call it whatever you like, be it an overlong music video, or an idiot's guide to pregnancy, BREAKING DAWN PART 1 is both a hit and a miss. At first, it becomes sentimentally sweet, as director Bill Condon (DREAMGIRLS) lavishes us with the wedding scene set to the tune of "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" first heard during the prom scene in the first Twilight movie.

Next, a mini-travelogue of Brazil that should have shown more landscape. 

Then, the most poignant and tiring part: the pregnancy. Much ado about nothing.

To be fair, I felt a little amount of understanding for the main characters' motivations: Bella wants to keep the baby and enforce her right to choose; Edward feels responsible, and guilty; Jacob feels doubly responsible, and his jealousy turns into sincerity, which is admirable.

What more can we demand? The film wants to be cheesy and does exactly that. Of the four Twilight films already released, I liked the first one (because of its playfulness) and this one (because of its maturity). I expected more action, but I guess it would be inappropriate to the storyline, and would seem irrelevant given the pregnancy. Just imagine Edward and Jacob lashing it out. What a caricature straight out of a soap opera, or maybe GREY'S ANATOMY. 

Good thing the film is saved by an open-endedness that leaves enough for the imagination. For those who read the book, the succeeding story is of no surprise. BREAKING DAWN PART 1 as a whole does not maximize its potential to become a full-pledge vampire movie, but at least it chooses a side in storytelling, a human side and stays there.

On the other hand, RENEESME? Stephanie Meyer, seriously?

RATING: 3/5

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