I am still failing to see why this needed to be in two films.
As with part one I refused to pay good money to travel to and sit in a cinema to watch the final films in this saga. So instead I have waited until renting it on a whim by signing up to Tesco's Blink Box thing (if you put in £1 they give you a fiver, so that's six squid to spend renting movies, basically you can rent one recent one and one from a few years ago). I flat out refuse to pay any money whatsoever to see The Host (Stephanie Meyer's poor excuse for a sci-fi novel) but with Twilight I HAD to get some closure.
Plus there was this thing of people telling me it was really good....uh huh.
It IS worth a watch for those who like Twilight, which is why it gets three stars. I had some positive moments and there is actually some decent acting going on - kudos to the casting director! I AM going to spoil the frick out of this movie though so if you are perhaps waiting for it to come on the TV in order to not pay a penny to see it (apart from the TV subscription and electricity of course) please stop reading now.
Just in case you skim read my reviews...
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
We shall start on a positive note. Lee Pace (aka Garrett, sexy loner vampire) was AMAZING. He, along with Billy Burke who plays Charlie, totally got the character and didn't seem the slightest bit uncomfortable. This has always been the problem with the Twilight movies, no one has ever seemed secure in their role except Charlie, and now Garrett. Oh and Benjamin and Aro too.
Aro is played with a vicariousness only present in a secure actor, who is of course respected Tony Blair impersonator Michael Sheen...OK so that's unfair as he is a very good actor when not being our former PM.
He also gets to kick some butt in this film which I really enjoyed despite it NOT HAPPENING IN THE BOOK.
Now okay so I rag on Meyer for being a terrible writer but seriously, when there is no fight scene in a book and all your going to do is this 'clever twist' which I guessed when people told me 'oh its really clever how they fitted in the fight that we have all seen in the trailers' because seriously, how else was it going to happen except for it being a vision that Alice has seen? you DON'T have to spend the extra money making the fight scene. That is, and I would have been happy with this, unless you are gonna change the ending and have the fight be real and actually introduce some tragedy into the sugary vampire drama.
Do I sound harsher than usual? I think I must be in a bad place or something.
So yes, because I knew they wouldn't possibly change the ending I spent the fight sequence thinking 'this is cool and all, vampire heads being ripped off left right and chelsea, few dead wolves too, but it means nothing really'. Fine, so the vision is the reason Aro doesn't start a battle but honestly, I felt real bad for Marcus.
That vampire wanted to die so bad, you could almost see the (excuse my language here) 'Oh for fucks sake' that was running through his mind as Aro shooed everyone away from starting a fight.
Visually the film was stunning. Fantastic snowy mountains, the grown up vamps looked cool and newcomer Benjamin with his fancy element manipulation was also fun.
However, and this was a gripe from the end of the last movie, when the child is described as being beautiful and with big brown eyes like her Mother's used to be, WHY THE HELL DOES CGI HAVE TO GET INVOLVED?
Seriously? Can someone explain why it was a good decision to manipulate a child's face with special effects? If you want a serious looking child get one that is half asleep, and once Renesmee got to about five kids are pretty good at acting, no need to make her face look a certain way. And it was so badly done, so awful and obvious it just put me off looking at the child when you are meant to be captivated by her.
Just a side note regarding the stupid name of the child, my respect levels for Kristen Stewart's acting abilities went up about a million points as she growled at Taylor Lautner (bless the boy his acting skills will never be as good as his abs) for nick naming her after the Loch Ness Monster.
Actually lets return to the positives once more because as annoying as I find Ms Stewart's acting method she must have let loose in this movie. Perhaps it was the restraint of the characterisation of Bella that made her seem to be the same in every other movie she did, but here she got to be proactive and when she yelled I believed her.
I think Pattinson was just coasting by this point in the films, he knew he could do Edward Cullen easily and just went with it. Can't blame him really, there are amazing gif sets that come up on Tumblr about how no-one was happier than Mr Pattinson for the Twilight nightmare to end. And when he smiles he is pretty so I was happy with his performance.
The rest of the actors were fine, its all a bit over dramatic for my taste anyway. I liked the Denali sisters and the showing off of each others powers. It was a shame they couldn't have scripted it better, there were some awful and painful cheesy lines in there.
But like I said, positives were in there too. Stewart acted. Pace was a fantastic Garrett. Sheen was Sheen. And though I was disappointed all the death and violence didn't actually take place the battle sequence was pretty cool to watch.
Overall the Twilights have been worth the watch. The first was undoubtedly the best because of the mood and tone that Katherine Hardwicke brought to the table. It was also the film where you can tell that everyone cared, no one had been tainted by the overwhelming nature of fandoms or been given nick names yet, no ones love life had been scrutinised constantly by the gossip machines of E! and the magazines, it was a brand new thing - not the vampire love story, but the idea that a teenage audience could connect to it.
I have become more disillusioned over the years and splitting Breaking Dawn into two films was the icing on the cake. Only good literature should be shown such devotion, and unfortunately I cannot bring myself to say that any of the Twilight books are remotely worth recommending based on the skill of the writer.
No comments:
Post a Comment