breaking dawn review

SPOILER ALERT

(Also, if you're not a Twilight fan this may go right over your pretty little head.)

After my last post, raving about how excited I was to see Breaking Dawn, 

I thought I better let you guys know how I liked it.

Well, it was fantastic, but let me elaborate.

It's difficult to take the word of a Twilight enthusiast,

because I don't care what the quality of the movie put before them,

they would tell you it was the greatest movie ever made.

So I am taking a step back and bringing you an honest opinion without gushing...too much.

Breaking Dawn starts with an invitation to the much-anticipated wedding of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.

The wedding is so beautiful.  White flowers cascading from great big, mossy trees.  

The whole cast is in this scene, which is very fun to see them all together.

And Stephenie Meyer makes a cameo as a wedding guest.

They whisk off to their honeymoon on Isle Esme.

The house is absolutely stunning on the private island.

DREAM honeymoon.

And hey, my favorite part of the movie. ;)

It kind of dragged on, but I appreciated that because I knew what was coming wasn't going to be quite as cheerful.

Then comes the pregnancy which completely changes the feel of the movie.

Bella begins to look completely emaciated, loses her coloring, and develops awful dark circles around her eyes.

This part I thought was actually quite amazing.  The effects used to make her look as awful as she did were pretty incredible.  She looked terrible - which was the point.  The make-up staff certainly knew what they were doing.

The birth scene was very poignant and well-done.  They really did this scene justice.  I had seen interviews with the cast saying they were all very proud of this scene - and they should have been.  They did a great job.  I remember reading this part of the book a few years ago, and thinking "How in the world are they going to pull that off?!"  Well, they did.  Kudos, guys.  I mean, uterus biting?  How do you make that work?  I think the fact that they didn't focus on it too much, and instead focused on the joy of Renesmee being born was what made it work.  And then obviously the shift to Bella almost dying took your mind off of the absurdity of vampire birthing.

Jacob's imprinting scene was quite sweet in my opinion.

In all of Taylor Lautner's interviews he had seemed so embarrassed about this particular scene, but I really think that turned out well.  He had this look of admiration and just like he "knew" she was the one.  It was perfect.

Waiting for Bella to wake up was agonizing as a viewer.  I was thinking to myself, "What is going on?!  Why isn't she waking up?  Did they forget that she makes it through?"  

But the ending scene is perfection.  Her eyes open and they are blood-red.  

Ahhhhh, can't wait for next November.

Until then, I'll be going back to the theater for seconds (and thirds, and fourths).

I'm in love.

Here is my Rotten Tomatoes review:

This movie was so well done.  Definitely the best of the franchise so far.  Being a Twilight fan, I loved it.  I can understand how non-fans wouldn't love it.  But fan or not, you can tell that these actors are invested into their characters and attention is paid to even the smallest details.  They took their time to satisfy the details of  the book.  The birth scene was both intense and tastefully shot - showing neither too much nor too little.  The wedding was gorgeous and emotional.  There was just enough humor.  I applaud a job well done to everybody involved.