A visual companion to the book...maybe?

Rating: 5/10 (21 November 2011)

If you are a Twi-hard fan who has been satisfied with the movies so far, you will love it. However if you are someone like me who is a fan of the books but struggles to enjoy the movies, you will definitely still have those same issues. This movie sticks closest to the book. Most scenes follow the book very closely both script wise and visually. With the other movies certain things weren't always the way the book would describe them to be, but with "Breaking Dawn 1" they've definitely done well with sticking to the story. Bill Condon has done an excellent job directing and the score has finally gone back into Carter Burwell capable hands. So if you loved the score from the first movie, you'll get those tingles all over again as Bella's lullaby plays in the background of some of the best scenes. The soundtrack is OK, no songs by Muse this time around though which I found to be a shame since they're a great band and have contributed to the previous soundtracks. However, one of the favorites from the first movie makes a comeback to accompany a beautiful, if not the most beautiful scene in the entire movie. The wolves also look good, though I found them to look a little "obviously fake" in a couple of scenes, but it is definitely not something that will take away from the quality of the film. I expected better action scenes considering how much money these movies make. All the action scenes are night scenes so the shots are really dark and hard to make out. It's not like they needed to "watch the budget".
On that note, I will now share what I didn't like about the movie. My biggest issue is still the same one that I've had since I saw the first movie: Kristen Stewarts performance as Bella. I have always had a problem with the way she portrays this character but I had hoped that with this movie she would get better because it is full of some serious emotional stuff. She not only under delivers in this movie but she really takes the magic out of it. Her performance is stiff, wooden, emotionless and annoyingly bland. It's basically Kristen playing herself instead of the beautiful character of Bella Swan. The script has given her some fantastic lines and emotionally gut wrenching material which she simply didn't deliver. The only scenes that worked in her favor are in the second half of the movie and that's because of the fact that they did a great make up job and she lost enough weight to look convincingly sick throughout the pregnancy. I have seen Kristen Stewart in other movies too and I just think that this girl is a very weak actress. It's a real shame because Bella is a great character in the books. Pattinsons performance is extremely disappointing in this movie. I think that he is a good actor but his best performance was probably in the first movie. It's since gotten weaker and weaker. Although he's performance is not the strongest, he is still believable as Edward. The actor who has improved the most and gotten better in every installment is Taylor Lautner and that's pretty hard for me to admit because I thought that he wasn't a good choice for Jacob at the start. Out of the three main characters Taylor is the most convincing. So I have to give props to Taylor as he is the strongest link in this movie with Kristen being the weakest. I also do not understand why they keep changing certain Cullens members hair styles and hair colors from bad to worse in these movies. OK Alice's hair is definitely spot on in this installment and the closest to the way it's described in the book. Emmet's and Esme's is too. Carlisle's and Jasper's however is awful. They have orange hair and really bad hair dos. Edwards hair is terrible. I will never understand why they changed his look so drastically from the first movie. He looked the way Edward is described in the book in the first movie. The hair was perfect and they also plucked and tamed Roberts eyebrows in the first film giving him that "out worldly beauty" that Edward is supposed to have. In this movie he's eyebrows are about three inches thick and his hair style is not even close to the way Edwards hair is described. The worst hair award definitely goes to poor Nikki Reid who plays the most stunning girl in the Cullen family, the irresistibly beautiful blonde, Rosalie. OK, her hair is not even blonde in this part!!! Seriously? It's a disgusting shade of dark gray and that is really confusing because her hair looked great in the last film, Eclipse. She also got robbed material wise. She barely has two lines in the movie even though she's one of if not the most predominant supporting characters in the book. Real shame too because Nikki's a good actress and there is some great interaction between Rosalie and Jacob in the book that they've sadly left out of the movie.
I thought that the birth scene was well done considering that they had to take it down to PG13 standards. The last 10 minutes of the movie are amazing and set the bar very high for "Breaking Dawn Part 2". I have to give Bill Condon props for doing a great job directing. Definitely did the best job out of the directors, shame he wasn't on board from the beginning.
I trust him to wrap up this story beautifully.