The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012)

Directed by Bill Condon. Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Peter Facinelli, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Michael Sheen, Billy Burke, Jamie Campbell Bower, Dakota Fanning, Maggie Grace, Noel Fisher, Guri Weinberg, Lee Pace, Christopher Heyerdahl, Mackenzie Foy. [PG-13]

Final chapter in the Twilight saga is akin to putting a dying animal out of its misery—bittersweet for those who love the beast, a merciful relief for everyone else. The plot is again founded on thin, confounding lore related to ages-old conflicts among vampires and doggy boys and whatever else (mummy men, perhaps?); maybe if the unnatural, cliché-muddled dialogue wasn’t so repellent to concentration, I might have been able to follow it clearly (care about it, on the other hand…). Picking up where the last one left off, the slow early stages get by on stupefied giggles while witnessing Bella “hunting prey”, a hysterically-unconvincing CGI baby, and Jacob defending his compulsion to get sexually intimate with said baby. Most of the rest of the movie is a labored buildup to a final battle between those who want to destroy the CGI monstrosity (quickly growing into a flesh-and-blood little girl) for being an “immortal child” and those who’d die defending her. Stilted as the staging and posturing of that final fight is, to say nothing for the awkward makeup and effects used to make pale, unimposing model-types look remotely dangerous, at least for a few minutes, the movie delivers on the level of cheesy yet brutal mayhem…until the curtain is pulled back on the fake-out and you want to light a torch in protest. Serving as the series’ actual long-awaited climax is fitting—a moronic tease designed to satisfy no one who wasn’t prepared for its arrival by devouring the books beforehand. Good news for those who like long end credits: these pay tribute to the efforts of everyone involved in the entire franchise.

18/100