Ding dong, the witch is deader! And so it freaking finally came down to this...

Rating: 6/10 (4 March 2015)

Time to leap to action, gather up your stake and crucifix, stock up on holy water, fortify your immortal soul, and prepare to brave all the unholy terrors of blackest midnight that lurk in the grim depths of Dracula's castle!!! Ah, wouldn't it be cool if the world of Twilight was actually like that? Nah, none of that with these movies! Oh whoa, yeah, so um, Bella was a vampire now, and there was no real change to her character at all except now she was a bitch, and she and Edwardian had conceived a nightmarish CGI-faced baby together that stared right at me, and the Volturi considered the mysterious creepy offspring of human and vampire a threat and attack. And then Bella and her new Cullen kindred stand around for a good hearty 90+ minutes while "witnesses" are gathered, which was just a fancy word for getting more fighters on their side with which to hopefully match the oncoming might of the sinister coven, and they have this genuinely great battle that does serve as a good finale for the series as a whole, but then... Well let us just say that they pull the rug out from under you in an extremely aggravating and undermining way! I do agree though that this is the most enjoyable one based on how it was the only one in the series did not by the end leave me feeling flat and disappointed, and I also didn't find it as mind-numbingly tedious, the plot felt less meandering and more focused, which I put down to the main driving force of the plot being the Volturi, who finally made their big move as the villains of this final movie. I always very much enjoyed all of their appearances, to me they always seemed to make every scene to feature them actually pretty great, I like 'em because they're a little closer to what vampires should be like - cruel, wrathful, intimidating. I especially get a kick out of Michael Sheen as the lovably effete and ruthless Aro. He was so fun the way he crazy- hammed it up like he was the arch-villain of an 80s Saturday morning cartoon show! And that bit when he unexpectedly gave out the girlish titter, what the f**k was that!? I thoroughly enjoyed the ending, it was the best action sequence they did yet. It wasn't bloody, but still very violent, there was like a dozen decapitations that were fairly graphic. But then it was all but ruined by the ridiculous twist, and the only real thing to happen in the whole damn movie, never happened at all.. Oh, you get on outta here with that bull-crap, what a colossal cop-out for the ages!!! Perhaps I jumped on the bandwagon at some point, but I also can't stand Stewart. I've said it before and I'll say it again, she was wrong for the part and it's her 'presence' that hurts these troublesome movies more than anything else, with most common grievances in regards to them coming down to her in one way or another. She has no presence and no style, such a role called for a certain strong soulfulness in a person that she clearly lacked. It is a performance that's really quite magnificent in its ineptitude. With the skill of an acrobat she ceaselessly contrived to skirt and weave around every opportunity to move the audience, to avoid all emotionally significant nuances that came her way, and reduce all possible characteristics down into one single note whine. She was less human than the rocks, and about as grey. My lord, they tried out just about everything with her, they had her regular, helpless, heartbroken, dying, and of course vampire - but no matter what they never managed to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that was Kristin Stewart as Bella Swan! These films definitely aren't for me, but I was very fair in my reviews and I gave them all a fighting chance. They are at least entertaining and slightly fun in a cheesy sort of way and aren't as god-awful as popular opinion would have you believe. But it's always basically the same thing, love-love-love, vampires vs werewolves, and a lot of ugly woodland. They just never evolve or change significantly at all. And as cinematically slick and dazzling as they are, there's no escaping the ever-present soulless lack of meaning in the things, they're palpably hollow, with absolutely nothing going on beneath the surface. The only challenge in them is trying not to laugh. In my view they're ultimately nothing but a bunch of immaculately empty, and intermittently thrilling failures. Twilight, I'll see you in hell!! I've made my peace.