rating: ★

Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) honeymooning in Rio. Gross.

Whenever a new Twilight movie comes out, I see it on opening night. This isn’t because I think they’re good movies. It’s because I know they’re bad, and hilariously so.

Breaking Dawn: Part 1 is the fourth film in the much-loved, much-reviled teen vampire romance series based on novels by Stephenie Meyer. Like with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Breaking Dawn was split into two movies in order to double box office grosses. Unlike with Harry Potter, however, Breaking Dawn hardly merits the added length as the entirety of Part 1 can be described in one line: Edward and Bella get married, have sex on their wedding night and Bella gets pregnant. That’s it. Anything in the film beyond these basic plot points is just unpardonable fan service.

For the odd person who doesn’t follow the films or who has deliberately avoided any knowledge of the Twilight series, it follows the romance of Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), an immortal vampire, and Bella Swan, a generic, emotionally confused teenager played by Kristen Stewart. After three films of Bella moping about deciding whether she loves Edward more than her best friend, werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), Bella has finally decided to marry Edward. That’s where Breaking Dawn: Part 1 picks up the story.

To put it lightly, the Twilight novels are poorly written and so the fact that the movies are extremely faithful to the novels is their biggest weakness. To be fair, there is something appealing about Twilight. They are romantic stories, a compelling mix of supernatural elements with the most ideal teen romance imaginable. But the dialogue is horrendous, the plots are non-existent and for anyone incapable of surrendering to the hyper-emotional absurdity of it all, the stories have no appeal beyond being hilarious catastrophes.

Unless you are the most ardent of Twilight fans, Breaking Dawn: Part 1 will leave you flabbergasted with its incompetence.

The Twilight films have mostly been competently executed versions of terrible stories. The actors have tried their best with the poor material they were given to work with (and they really can’t be blamed for being involved in these movies given the eight-figure salaries and guaranteed superstardom). The directors have tried to add interesting flourishes here and there, but the final products were doomed by their fidelity to the source material. With Breaking Dawn: Part 1, its failure can’t even be blamed on the book anymore.

Breaking Dawn: Part 1 is simply a horrendous movie.

Every moment in the film is depicted in excruciating detail — except for the wedding night, unfortunately. The wedding scene is around half an hour long. The honeymoon seems around the same length. The pregnancy goes on far too long. Yet for a film with so much extra time available, lots of exposition goes unexplained or clumsily so. For example, the notion of werewolf imprinting, the idea that werewolves can “imprint” their soul mates and assure love forever (apparently a large component of being a werewolf), is raised out of nowhere so that Jacob can be given a creepy future love interest in the form of Bella and Edward’s vampire baby.

The tone bizarrely wavers between silly inside jokes and twisted Cronenberg-esque body horror. One minute the film makes a joke that only fans who have read the series dozens of times will get, and the next Bella looks like a concentration camp victim, tortured by the strain of her unborn vampire baby.

The actors behave awkwardly, no longer even trying for a good performance. The film’s score, a highlight for previous films of the series, is an almost non-stop accompaniment of trite piano music and overblown emotional cues. I can’t think of a moment in the film when the music isn’t blaring, holding your hand from plot point to plot point like you’re an idiotic child.

All parties involved should be embarrassed. I have given a slide to the filmmakers behind Twilight in the past, if only because their intentions seemed earnest and working on one of these films could be a big break. With Breaking Dawn: Part 1, it’s just sad to see so much effort go into this kind of travesty.

At least the film is so ludicrous that it serves as one of the better comedies you will see this year. A scene in which the werewolves have a telepathic argument, complete with the actors doing growly wolf voices, is one of the funniest scenes ever put on film.

Unless you are the most ardent of Twilight fans, Breaking Dawn: Part 1 will leave you flabbergasted with its incompetence. If you’re not a Twi-hard, you will either have to watch it as a comedy or seriously fight your better impulses not to break out in fits of uncontrollable laughter.

[box type=”info”]Breaking Dawn: Part 1 is currently playing at Galaxy Cinemas.[/box]

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Photo: Supplied