action washed away by suds

Rating: 5/10 (31 March 2012)

If you're developing cold feet at the prospect of tying the knot - especially if you happen to be human and your intended a vampire - you may want to avoid watching "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1," written by Melissa Rosenberg and directed by Bill Condon. And if you are contemplating having a baby with a vampire, then you REALLY don't want to catch this fourth film based on the series of phenomenally successful novels by Stephanie Meyer.
In this installment, Bella (Kristen Stewart) and her dreamy vampire boyfriend Edward (Robert Pattinson) finally get hitched, but happiness is fleeting for the newlyweds as the still-human Bella finds herself coping with the most disturbing and problematic movie pregnancy since "Rosemary's Baby" (or "Alien," if you want to count that as a pregnancy).
In purely narrative terms, this is a fairly static entry in the series, as Bella wastes away to skeletal status through the ordeal, and everyone sits around discussing the moral implications of having an unprecedented cross-species child, especially when the birth experience itself will likely spell death for the mother. There's a halfhearted attempt at revving up the action when the werewolves threaten to intervene by killing Bella, but the star-crossed and loyalty-divided Jacob (Taylor Lautner) defuses the situation in quick order (it also leads to a ludicrous voice-over conversation among the wolves that provides some unintentional laughs for the audience).
Still, Stewart gets to do more intense acting than she has thus far in the series, and Bella's transformation plus the addition of the child offer new story possibilities for "Breaking Dawn - Part 2," due for release in November 2012.