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Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I review

Check out our review of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I - is it any good and how suitable is it for kids?

Breaking Dawn Part 1

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I

Certificate: 12A

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner

Release date: 2011

3 out of 5

3

The last-but-one instalment in the movie adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally successful Twilight novels comes to the big screen, with a new director at the helm (Dreamgirls‘ Bill Condon, who has also made Part 2, coming in November 2012).

Picking up from where Eclipse left off, Bella (Stewart) is preparing to marry vampire love Edward (Pattinson) against the wishes of her werewolf pal Jacob (Lautner), who knows the nuptials will be followed by the groom turning the bride into a bloodsucker. However, the happy couple decide to save the vampire-turning stuff until after their honeymoon, so that Bella can experience her wedding night as a human (nudge nudge, wink wink). Cue some bed-breaking and bruising as super-strong Edward gets all carried away, and then morning sickness for Bella as she becomes pregnant with a vampire baby that threatens her life and gets the werewolves circling and threatening to kill what could be an uncontrollable blood-drinking monster when it’s born.

Splitting the 700+-page Breaking Dawn (be warned – it’s the most bonkers of all the Twilight novels in terms of plot) into two films was no doubt partly a money-making idea inspired by two-parter Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows movies, as it does mean that this half is low on action, with only one tussle taking place near the end. Instead, this one – which features the sharpest script since the original Twilight – centres more on Edward and Bella’s romance and the rapidly-swelling belly which she becomes fiercely protective of, despite the fact that it threatens her own life (the special effects that show an emaciated pregnant Bella are particularly impressive). There’s some brooding Jacob moments, of course, but both Pattinson and Lautner are given more to do than just stare moodily at each other for a change, and there are nice moments featuring the supporting cast, too, especially Billy Burke as Bella’s clueless dad Charlie, Ashley Greene as Alice and Nikki Reed as Rosalie.

There’s the occasional snigger-some moment (most notably when Jacob first spies Bella’s pregnancy bump and shouts: ‘You did this!’ at Edward… well, duh!) and the second half gets a bit soap-opera-like as hands are wrung and brows furrowed, but fans of this romance fantasy saga will be pleased at where in the story the movie ends, and will no doubt be counting the days and months until the final instalment of this guilty-pleasure vampire romance.

Is Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...

This is aimed at audiences over 12 years old. The birth itself is a bit gruesome, but otherwise there are no nasty moments.

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