Breaking Dawn 2

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.