Breaking Dawn: Part 2 (2012)

3/5

Unfortunately, the final piece of this five part saga was significantly better than I hoped and anticipated. I say unfortunately because it would be much easier to just malign the whole series and dismiss it as a silly tween's simple-minded fantasy. But this movie is better than all the previous ones. For one reason and one reason alone. There is an epic fight sequence at the finale. And instead of being a pastiche of piss-poor special effects you might find in original SyFy movies like Sharktopus (as I initially expected), it turned out to be a well-coordinated, well-shot, surprisingly visceral and white-knuckle experience. Seriously, the action was better than some blockbuster superhero movies I've seen recently (i.e., The Dark Knight Rises).

Now, don't confuse my meaning. I am not suggesting that the movie is good. It's not. Everything before the battle sequence is about what I expected from the previous four films. The majority of that first hour could probably have been condensed into a 3-minute montage. There is barely any plot advancement or character development (although I guess that's not something to be expected from this series). It felt like the ending of The Lord of the Rings, a collection of thirteen disparate loose ends that the movie was working on tying up in standalone scenes instead of integrating them into a broader context.

That is to say nothing of the story itself, which is simply laughable. It turns out that vampires are actually X-Men with sharp teeth, because they all seem to have special mutant powers. And apparently the only way to kill a vampire is by ripping off its head and setting it on fire. Who knew? (Who knew also that that kind of stuff was PG-13?) Also, inexplicably, they decided to use a CGI baby in a number of scenes instead of a real baby. Not for the baby to do anything special--just to be a baby. But I guess that's the whole Twilight series: a bizarre, out-of-body experience that is totally unnecessary and bordering on offensive.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1673434/

Water for Elephants (2011)

3/5

I had low expectations for Water for Elephants, but it surprised me with its competence and adequacy. The movie starts with an elderly Jacob (Holbrook) telling a circus manager about the "greatest disaster in circus history." The younger Jacob (Pattinson) is studying to be a veterinarian when debt forces him to join the circus, where he meets up with charming but sadistic owner August (Waltz) and his star performer and wife Marlena (Witherspoon). There is supposed to be an instant attraction between Jacob and Marlena, propelling the events to follow in motion, but there is absolutely no chemistry between the actors. Waltz does a spectacular job, but his character is almost identical to Col. Landa in Inglourious Basterds, which made it less interesting and less terrifying to watch here. The cinematography was great and the visual impact of the movie was strong, but the story as a whole was about as thin as the romance. It's an entertaining diversion, but ultimately offers very little beyond that.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1067583/

Breaking Dawn: Part 1 (2011)

1/5

Wow. And I thought the first two were bad (I thankfully "missed out" on the third one). This movie goes over the intricacies and technicalities of vampire weddings, vampire pregnancies, and vampire babies in excruciating, explicit, unexpectedly graphic detail. Quite frankly, the sex scenes and the birthing scenes were truly disturbing affairs that I wish I could unwatch. Everything about this movie is staged, written, and stilted, much like Sharktopus and other B movies. It felt like everyone was putting on a performance for the camera, and nothing about this (admittedly preposterous) fantasy felt believable in any way. The technical aspects were just as laughable as before, with horrendous pacing, poor special effects, and uninspired action. Oh, and very awkward intimacy (with some neonatophilia). Ultimately, I think my biggest frustration is that nothing actually happens during this movie until it actually ends. It's all a bunch of angry outbursts without any climax, without any substance. This isn't just a bad movie; it's an infuriating one. Watch at your own risk.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1324999/

Remember Me (2010)

2/5

Remember Me is a gutsy movie that doesn't quite work for me. The impact and meaning is based on a surprise at the end that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie, and therefore is a complete crap shoot as to whether or not you will like it. In fact, the entire movie trudges along because it knows what happens at the end, but you will find it slow and overbearing because you don't. The movie follows Emilie de Raven after a brutal scene in the beginning where she watches her mother get shot in a mugging. It also follows Robert Pattinson as a pale, emo non-vampire who gets into fights with random strangers and cops. The whole thing is very bizarre. They begin a relationship on fairly shaky ground and we watch it progress alongside their relationships with their families, with no sense of where anything is going until it eventually gets there at the end.

The technical aspects are surprisingly competent (I found them surprising anyway). There are some great shots in this movie and some provocative editing. However, that's where the competence ends and the incompetence begins. The script is excruciatingly emo, or maybe it's just the acting that makes me want to tear my eyeballs out and use them to plug my ears. The directing includes unnecessarily violent scenes, presumably intended to shock us with matter-of-fact style. Unfortunately it just comes off as gratuitous exploitation (as does the ending). There is no redeeming factor that would allow me to recommend this movie.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1403981/

New Moon (2009)

1/5

New Moon is a bad movie. This is the extent to which I know the plot: the vampire (Pattinson) makes up some reason to leave the town, which of course makes the pale girl (Stewart) depressed. She starts getting closer with her werewolf neighbor (Lautner) and then has to choose between them. There's little else in the 2+ hour movie, although I did learn a few things during the course of watching it. First, Kristen Stewart is ugly when she cries. I think she's ugly all the time, but apparently that sentiment is not as universally shared as I thought. Second, Taylor Lautner has a fairly fit physique. I know this because EVERY SINGLE SCENE with him in it had him shirtless. Kyle thinks his back muscles make him look like a camel or something. Third, Robert Pattinson has kind of a grotesque, gargoylish, sickly frame that makes me think he should see a doctor for anorexia or heroin addiction. Fourth, the CGI werewolves looked like they have really fat necks. It was weird. Oh, and I presume the director had a call for extra pauses, and asked the male pauses to have sex with the female pauses, because there are a bajillion pregnant pauses in this movie intended to simulate fierce thinking and emo angst. Nearly half an hour is wasted on long, drawn out dialogue where the teenagers cannot find the words they want to say. The movie has a lot of forced writing, forced acting, and forced action. It's a round peg of a book being forced into a square hole of a movie. I can't wait for the third one!

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259571/

Twilight (2008)

2/5

Twilight is a terrible movie. It is about an awkward high school girl who meets an equally awkward high school vampire (despite the fact that he's been around for 200 years or so) and the heroin-like obsessive love they develop for each other. You would think that after two centuries of existence, he would be less socially inept (and would've found someone else!), but you would be wrong. So after postulating that he's a vampire based on visual experience and an ancient tome, I can see how a silly girl might believe that to be the case. But isn't it far more likely that she's experiencing hallucinations or delirium? Maybe she should have checked herself into a mental institution. (Also, I may not have a great memory, but I'm pretty sure high school was never that awkward and weird. Granted, we did not have vampires in our class, as far as I know.)

The romance aspect was clearly unhealthy, with flat, uninspired pairings of flat, uninspired characters. The acting was monotonous, the directing was bland, the music was forgettable (except the Radiohead song they played during the end credits). There wasn't even any vampire action to speak of, just a lot of simple audiovisual special effects. Lots of unconvincing whooshes and time lag filters. The only thing that stood out was the rest of the high school class (the non-vampires), although their storyline quickly fell to the wayside about halfway through the movie. All in all, this is an unsurprisingly unimpressive preteen movie.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1099212/