It Was Everything It Was Supposed To Be.

Rating: 6/10 (22 November 2012)

First of all, I must say that this movie is a guilty pleasure of mine. I do enjoy good, quality cinema but sometimes you kind of need that Cheese Factor for entertainment purposes. I'm a big lover of Science Fiction and I think the reason why I gave this saga a chance, time and time again, is because I kept believing that each director would adapt in a very interesting way. Unfortunately, I realized after the second movie that this entire series is for teenage girls who are love lorn. It's a market that never fails to do it's job, just ask Justin Bieber, One Direction and Taylor Swift. I stopped going to this movie expecting to see an in depth screenplay, Oscar worthy acting or a complex storyline. I only went for the action. So I overlooked the Emo-atmosphere and the laughable reality of it and just took it for what it was.
The Good - The cinematography in every movie has definitely been on point and this movie is no different. It's a visually amazing movie. I enjoyed Kristen Stewart actually show emotion. You can tell she had fun with this part which was necessary since her character, Bella, is finally happen so to see her smile more than once was great. Michael Sheen as Aro is great, his eyes are very convincing. The locations, production design, and costuming are are very well thought out and put together. There were some funny, enjoyable parts in the script. Most of it was extremely cheesy but I did find myself laughing out loud at certain subtle moments. The ending fight scene had me on the edge of my seat. A little underwhelming but still done very well.
The Bad - The script could have been rewritten a few more times to get rid of a lot of the cheesy dialog and to evolve the story even more. I think most of the actors in this franchise are all very talented but the mistake with each director is that they think Vampires are all mundane, emotionless, straight faced people. Interview With A Vampire is probably the best vampire movie ever made so far, mainly because they all had different personalities. The method in the Twilight Saga for vampires is to let your eyes bulge while showing emotion and to talk without opening your mouth that wide. That's how immortal vampires should talk and act. Wrong completely. It's almost uncomfortable to watch most of the actors because you want to stop acting so uninhibited but they don't. It's like they're all holding themselves back. I know that Reneesme is a different type of child and she had to do things, even as a baby, that would have have been very difficult to do on film so I understand the use of using a CGI baby, but do CGI Mackenzie Foy's face was a little confusing. I wanted their to be a deeper interaction between Edward, Bella and the Reneesme but there wasn't. Just cheesy things like catching snowflakes and the typical "father plays piano while small child hits two keys scene". I work with kids so I just wanted them to interact with her on a more personal level. There were also a lot of characters in this movie that were kind of overlooked. There were a lot of conversation that needed to written down and filmed simply because in the conclusion, it turned from a story about Bella to a story about everyone. Each character had something to lose but they were all pretty much overlooked and just used to have lots of bodies in the final scene. The filmmaker should have taken advantage of those opportunities. Instead of stretching thirty minutes of story into two hours.
Overall, I left the theater wanting more. I think the conclusion would leave a lot of Twilight fans and book readers satisfied but it hit every part of the book it needed to but overall the entire movie was rushed. I can't imagine how hard it is to adapt an already popular and book series you can't assume that everyone going to see it already knows the story. You have to approach as if no one has seen any of the movies. I think most of the people who went to see this movie, mainly went for the final battle which was rushed. There should have been at least an extra ten to fifteen minutes. There were about eight characters introduced as witnesses for the Cullens but were never shown fighting at all. All the wolves just showed up and I wanted to see Jacob and Sam talking about the upcoming danger in a Wolf meeting by themselves so they can talk about their stakes. I am also hot and cold about the special "twist" at the end. It was a little predictable though because I did think that would happen. The book didn't have a battle but in any more, you know that people are going to have to die but to see Key characters die would have upset a lot of fans so the twist was necessary.
Stephanie Meyer should study more science fiction before she writes another novel. She obviously is a romance novel writer and just uses a science fiction type of twist on her stories to make them stand out. But she still doesn't understand the genre completely. The Twilight Saga has a lot of potential and could have been more than what it was but when you have the creator as a producer, I guess you have to make her happy before you attempt to make a solid movie. This movie was bound to make a lot of money because of the market it targets but I'm sure we will look back on this series ten year from now and say, "Damn, we missed the mark."