CAST: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattison, Taylor Lautner, Mackenzie Foy; Direction: Bill Condon; Screenplay: Melissa Rosenberg; Story: Stephanie Meyer; Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro; Editing: Virginia Katz; Producer: Wyck Godfrey, Karen Rosenfelt, Stephanie Meyer; Music: Cartner Burwell; Location: Seatle; Genre: Drama Fantasy; Distributor: Summit Entertainment; Running Time: 116 minutes.
Technical Assessment : 3 stars
Moral Assessment : 3.5 stars
Rating : V14
Breaking
Dawn 2 picks up from the last sequel and sees a fully transformed
mother and vampire in Bella (Kristen Stewart), who embraces this new life with
great happiness. Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy), Bella and Edward’s daughter, is
special. Not only is she half vampire—gifted with superhuman speed and strength
and the ability to penetrate mental shields and project her thoughts to
another; she is also half human—warm blooded and with the ability to grow and
mature. But Bella’s fairytale is doused with stinging cold waters when Irina, a
vampire from the Denali clan tells the Volturi that the couple violated one of
the most important laws and created an immortal child. Now, Bella realizes she
has to protect her child from the Volturi. So the Cullens gather witnesses
from foreign covens and Jacob’s new pack in the hope of standing up
against the Volturi.
The technical aspect of the film is remarkably clean and
enjoyable. There is that seemless overlapping of real action and CGIs that
audience can easily get lost inside the fantasy world. Storywise, it did stay
faithful to the book but interpreted it a tad too slow and trite with too much
sentimentality and MTV-moments. However, it was a good directorial call to
include the battle scene between the two groups as it added the much needed
action and recaptured the audiences’ sympathy towards the characters. Although
the actors displayed understanding and chemistry of both their roles and with
and one another’s characters, Bella still has that irritating insecure
awkwardness as a vampire—a far comparison to the mysterious iciness of the
rest. (But, of course, of all of
them Bella is the only one who wanted to become a vampire).
There had been critics of Bella’s immaturity in the previous
films as well as disdain towards a story that centers on a girl chasing a boy
the last installments; here a more mature and selfless Bella emerges and shifts
her attention from herself and her heartaches her family and loved ones.
If there is one thing Breaking
Dawn 2 emphasizes it is the importance of family and how one’s love for
them would compel us to sacrifice, fight and risk everything for their sake.
The film also shows that a family not only means one blood relative. Breaking
Dawn 2—and perhaps the entire Twilight
series—is not a vampire story where the creatures kill or are hunted but a
story about love, acceptance, family and sacrifice set in a time where vampires
and werewolves existed.
CINEMA recommends both the novel and the movie for teenagers
as it brings into focus the value of marriage, the need to protect life in the
womb and the importance of family.
