Summit Entertainment
117 min., dir. by Bill Condon with Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner

Piercing the hearts of tween girls and love-starved mothers, the Twilight series is a hit whether you like it or not. With three tragically hilarious chapters of the film adaptations already infecting viewers’ good senses, part one of the split finale is heading to a theater near you.

It’s god knows how many weeks later since we left the dysfunctional world of these feuding vampires and werewolves. Edward and Bella are getting ready to throw down their nuptials, and all the main players are in attendance (including characters the writers seem to think the audience is familiar with, but were never introduced to) except triangle love interest, Jacob. Wolfy eventually shows up and gets overly angry and ruins the mood until the newlyweds are off to their honeymoon.

Over a poorly realized 14 days of Edward bruising his wife and destroying a bed or two from his powerful lovemaking, Bella is impregnated. In a situation that no one was even sure could be possible, the baby grows at an alarming rate, putting Bella’s life in danger. Everyone but Bella believes the baby inside her will come out a deranged killing machine, and it puts the peaceful truce between the Cullens and their local wolf pack in jeopardy, as well as Bella’s well-being.

Granted, I’m not the target audience for lovesick vampire stories. Still, that doesn’t excuse the pure sense of disregard for the audience’s intelligence this film spews at every corner. In the funniest moment in history since the discovery of laughter, Jacob and his pack meet in wolf form, accompanied by distinctly ridiculous voice-overs (so we can understand what their growls and barks mean) to discuss the murder of the demon child in Bella’s belly. Immediately afterward, Jacob appears, coming out of the woods in clean new duds that he must have stored in his cheeks and dried with his huffing and puffing that was once meant to blow the Cullens’ house down. Who can offer these mad ramblings and expect to be taken seriously?

With dialogue ripped from the addles of absurdity, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 drives off the cliff in its first minutes and pours on the insanity as the car explodes and rolls down an endless rock face. In the 100-plus years of existing these vampires have suffered through, it’s amazing none of them have heard of one instance where a vampire impregnated a human. Instead, they run around like headless chickens taking guesses as to what could happen or what can be done. The fact that Jacob knew at the opening of the film — the dangers of a vamp shooting his seed in the living — was forgotten the minute he heard what happened, leaving the mystery open to any outcome.

It’s also no help that the introduction of something called “werewolf imprinting” is barely explained to any reasonable extent, yet is used heavily in discussion throughout the movie and turns out to be a major plot point. Thanks for letting the audience in on the important stuff, movie.

As the Harry Potter series progressed, the stories and situations became darker and less childlike. They dealt with death, but deservingly so, in an adult manner. Being aimed at young teens, Twilight has chosen to get bloodier and disturbingly sexual. Though tame by horror standards, the final half-hour of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is thoroughly gory and unsettling for the groups of women these stories look to turn on. Fans will  forgive the disgusting nature of their beloved Edward and friends, I’m sure, but it will go down as yet another instance of mainstream double-standards.

The safe bet is that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 will set some box office record and please its loyal fan base. As much as my loathing of this torrid tale of sparkly dead and hairy Native Americans grows in me — as fast and vile as Bella’s demon baby — I can’t help but say I slightly enjoyed myself. This was the funniest film I’ve seen since Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.

—

Matthew Schuchman is the founder and film critic of Movie Reviews From Gene Shalit’s Moustache (http://shalitsstache.com) and the contributing film writer for IPaintMyMind(http://ipaintmymind.org).