What Do The Critics Say?

"The specifics of the story don't make a lick of sense: they never have in the Twilight saga. That constant rushing between dull and crazy makes Breaking Dawn feel a little schizophrenic, though, and when the credits show up on a bright red screen accompanied by loud rock music, it seems Condon might have thought his entire movie was as gonzo as that rightly nutty birth scene. There really is no polishing a Twilight movie, which by design will have to be both silly and terribly boring." Katey Rich CINEMABLEND "Start hating me now, Twihards, the sexless, bloodless, padded and plodding Breaking Dawn, Part 1 is the worst Twilight movie to date. Condon is helpless before the ravening banality of Rosenberg’s screenplay, which substitutes timidity for risk at every turn. Even good actors expire under the film’s cheeseball cloud. Whew! And that’s just the first half of the book." Peter Travers ROLLING STONE "It's a combination of On Chesil Beach and Rosemary's Baby written as an admonitory text for the Virginity Pledge Society under the aegis of a descendant of Bram Stoker. It raises more laughs at the back of the stalls than hairs on the back of the neck. Particularly ineffectual are the fights between the werewolves and the vampires, who do battle for Bella's soul in the Pacific Northwest." Philip French THE OBSERVER "Such a slow-moving, overstuffed chore of a movie, it is barely even worth calling a "bridging film." All you do is wait and wait and wait. Crippled by a patchy script with some utterly vomitous dialogue and a directorial style that looks like a daytime soap with a few expensive flourishes. Breaking yawn." Tim Martain THE MERCURY "Director Bill Condon attempts to give the proceedings some vitality, but he’s hamstrung by novelist Stephanie Meyer’s torpid plotline. He’s also unable to solve the issue that has made the previous films so unbearable: The lead characters are relentlessly dull and unappealing. If you're on neither Team Edward nor Team Jacob, however, nothing in 'Breaking Dawn' will win you over." Dan Lybarger REEL REVIEWS "Throughout the series, Meyer's lurid take on teenage passion has shone through as one of the ugliest and most insidious messages ever sent to its target demographic. Condon tries to humanize the ridiculous supernatural soap opera by encouraging his cast to flesh out the characters. I’d hoped that Stewart would find something worth acting about, but nope; she’s content to play Bella as the same sullen mope she’s always been. The movie’s so fully divorced from understandable emotional arcs." Norman Willner NOW MAGAZINE

"Stewart, Pattinson, and Lautner are all okay, I guess. The supporting actors (Anna Kendrick aside) are as bland and stiff as ever. Visually, Breaking Dawn lacks the inventiveness Hardwicke brought to the original. It is very focused on the idea of Not Pissing Off The Fans By Getting It Wrong. As a relative outsider, I found that this mentality sucked all the life out of the film." Mike McGranaghan AISLE SEAT "It was about the time a teary Bella literally begged her husband to fuck her that the Twilight series officially made the transition for me from more or less harmless Victorian-minded trash to something flatly pernicious. And boring, to boot. An endless swap of dewy then sulky looks between Bella and Edward. Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg continues her long tradition of scripting staggeringly banal, subtext-free dialogue and grasping at the profundity of her betters by quoting poetry in the prologues." Kimberley Jones AUSTIN CHRONICLE "The occasionally amusing Twilight Saga finds a new low with the dramatically inert, painfully dull Breaking Dawn Part 1. The little amusement generated is typically unintentional." Shaun Munro WHAT CULTURE "This slow-moving film has long periods of inaction and generates little suspense, making it the worst film in the "Twilight Saga" films so far. This movie seems to be a mere multimillion dollar bookmark, marking time until the overarching story is finally concluded in the last film. Short on plot developments and long on inaction, the characters spend much of the film waiting for something, anything to happen." Robert Roten LARAMIE MOVIE SCOPE "Splitting the last of Stephenie Meyer’s books in two is a shameless ploy; the movie is all but plotless. Director Bill Condon, prostituting himself, flirts with teen porn. The only entertainment comes from the audience, squealing with teeny-bopper glee when werewolf Taylor Lautner rips off his shirt. Jim Lane SACREMENTO NEWS & REVIEW "Strange, meandering, uneven and oddly made, Breaking Dawn - Part One is the weakest of the Twilight films since the first chapter. A boring mess that exists only to milk the fans that made the series a success, but is so unsexy and just plain weird that even the most devoted Twihards stand to be disappointed or grossed out, or possibly, both." Diva Velez THE DIVA REVIEW

The Inside Story The Twilight Saga film series starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner and tells the story of seventeen year old Bella Swan who moves to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her father and becomes drawn to Edward Cullen, a pale, mysterious classmate who seems determined to push her away. But neither can deny the attraction that pulls them together, even when Edward confides that he and his family are vampires. To complicate matters, Bella‘s best friend Jacob Black is a werewolf, designed solely to kill vampires. The action-packed, modern day vampire love story "Twilight", the first film in the series, was released in theatres on December 19th 2008 to a blockbuster reception. The second installment, "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" was released November 19th 2009, and the third film, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse", followed quickly on July 1st 2010. The three movies have grossed over $US1.8 billion in worldwide ticket sales. The films continue to set subsequent home entertainment records as well: "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" sold over four million DVD units in its first weekend of its U.S. release in March 2010: a tally surpassing Twilight, which sold 3.8 million DVD units in its first weekend in 2009; and went on to be the top selling DVD title of the year with 9.2 million units sold. With each release, thousands of retail locations nationwide take part in midnight release events for insatiable Twilight fans, who are eager for more of the continuing story. With the home entertainment release of The "Twilight Saga: Eclipse", the franchise has now sold more than twenty five million DVD/Blu-ray units in the U.S. alone. As in the book, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1" sees the three main characters continue on their journey into adulthood, beginning during the busy final days of preparations for the wedding of Bella and Edward. At the end of Eclipse, we left them in the meadow talking about the impending wedding. 'Breaking Dawn' begins with everyone that we've come to know receiving invitations. "Bella and Edward are in different stages of wedding jitters, and then we embark right into the wedding of the century," explains producer Wyck Godfrey, who has worked on all the films in the series. "Then we go off to Brazil, where they spend their honeymoon on Isle Esme, which everybody is looking forward to. Of course, then problems occur, as they do in marriage. An unexpected pregnancy. By the end of the film, Bella will no longer be single, will no longer be childless, and will no longer be human." This fourth film explores more adult themes like marriage and family, and what you would do to protect those you love unconditionally. "I've always liked stories where the characters get to grow up. I didn't like them when they were frozen in one period, where you have this person who's always the same age and doing the same things," series author Stephenie Meyer explained. "I loved Anne of Green Gables, that she grew up, got married, and had six kids. Then her kids grew up and got married. it feels like life. There's progression. So I always intended to take the Twilight story through the generations. When I first got started, I loved what I was doing so much, it was such a beautiful creative release that I saw myself just going on through the generations and writing about them forever. I didn't ever want to quit." Meyer also took on the role of producer for the final two installments of the film series, which were shot concurrently. She was on set on a daily basis throughout production. "Really, the producer title hasn't changed my role much. All along, I‘ve been very much a part of the decision making process, while also having to compromise." Meyer again served as a resource for screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, a veteran of the entire film series. "Melissa has done an amazing job synthesizing these books into movies. From the very first book, she's carried us all the way through, and had the discipline while we're making one movie to really be buckling down on the next one, and forcing us to pay attention," Godfrey ("Behind Enemy Lines") notes. "Initially, I sat down and broke both stories into an outline. We had to know that it would work in an outline form, before we even moved forward. The book was very big, but not quite two movies. There needed to be some expansion. So, it was really incumbent upon me to make sure that there were two movies in there. The pressure was quite something," Rosenberg recalls. Joining the ranks of previous 'Twilight Saga' directors Catherine Hardwicke (who directed the late Heath Ledger in "Lords of Dogtown"), Chris Weitz (who directed Toni Collette in "About a Boy"), and David Slade (who directed Melissa George in "30 Days Of Night"); Academy Award® winning filmmaker Bill Condon (who executive produced the 81st Academy Awards ceremony hosted by Hugh Jackman) was selected to helm the last two installments. "A lot of great directors came forward who were interested in the material and that challenge of making two movies at once," Godfrey ("When a Stranger Calls") stated. "We had approached Bill Condon on both 'New Moon'and 'Eclipse'. So when we started looking for 'Breaking Dawn' and he was both available and interested; that was a really exciting for all of us. I‘ll always remembered what he said in an early meeting talking about the books and the movies, 'I guess I've imprinted on the world of Twilight.' It was perfect that he'd used that metaphor for his own affection for the series." Condon had numerous reasons for wanting to be involved. "What was interesting to me is that each of those previous films is very different, one to the other, the 1999 Oscar winning screenwriter for "Gods and Monsters" notes. "Each director has had a completely different approach to those movies, even though the story is continuous from one book to the next. There‘s a unity in the writing, both of the books and the scripts." "In this film, the main threat is not only the internal threat of the unknown child to Bella, but also the wolves pending attack on the Cullen house. We've stepped away from the threat of the Volturi, and really dealt with the internal threats of Forks, Washington, and what the birth of this child is going to do to this uneasy truce between the Cullen vampires and the wolves," Godfrey says. So what is it that makes Condon the ideal director? "Bill's perfect because he‘s a genre junky and he loves fantasy. Early in his career he also wrote genre films, plus he's a visual director: look at Dreamgirls." "There are classic Hollywood genres that go out of fashion, musicals are an example. I am interested in how do you make those genres work," 2005 Directors Guild of Great Britain Award winner Condon ("Kinsey") explained. "As I said, this really is a classic romantic melodrama. Those really don't get made much anymore. But across movie history, especially during the Golden Age of Hollywood, melodrama was really a staple genre, that‘s now fallen by the wayside." Even though he is an accomplished screenwriter in his own right, Condon was happy to leave the screenwriting chores to Rosenberg. "We started from her outline. It was so good to have her, as she knew the challenges of adapting 'Twilight' to the screen so intimately. Melissa is a really good writer and working with her was one of my favorite parts of making this movie." "I'd already done three Twilight movies and I was getting tired. You rarely hear a writer say this, but part of me was hoping he might just take the script and do a polish. When we first sat down he says, 'I don't wanna write this: you're going to write this.' I was like 'Oh, really?' The one time I want a director to go on and re-write me, he refuses," Rosenberg (TV'S "Dexter") says. "But his notes were very specific, very inspiring, and very creative." Kristen Stewart ("Adventureland") says: "Thank God for Bill Condon. "You need someone who's on top of the details, so you can lose your mind and just feel it. Working with every director is a unique experience, just as is every friendship you have in life. Bill is not only one of the nicest people to be around but he's an awesome director, which is good to have on this last one because this one was intimidating to say the least." Pattinson ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire") agrees. "Bill's great. He has such a hard job. It's been such an intense shoot for so long and he's stayed calm, nice, and very pleasant throughout the whole thing. He's extremely talented and cares a lot about the project." Taylor Lautner adds, "Bill‘s number one focus was on the characters. Breaking Dawn deals with so many that we were definitely going to need somebody that could handle it, not an easy job. The crazy thing is that, as the characters were growing up in the movies, we were as well. I was looking at pictures of us from Twilight and we looked so young. It was crazy. I was sixteen years old. It‘s an awesome experience because we‘ve been able to grow up together for the past three or four years. Everybody has grown close to Bill. We have so much fun with him. Bill is incredible." The young actors were also grateful for guidance available from author Stephenie Meyer. Lautner ("Valentine's Day") says: "I can‘t thank her enough. She created these characters and having her here has been amazing because, let‘s face it, this is probably the most confusing and complicated movie yet. She has all the answers and is actually a little prankster. She‘s quite funny. Everybody‘s grown pretty close to her." Stewart wishes that Meyer "had been on the set every day for the first few movies. I've loved having her here so much. On a movie set, everything is very much about energy." 'Breaking Dawn Part 1' brings back the major cast from all the previous films and introduces five new vampire characters making up the Denali Coven. The much-loved and globally recognizable actors playing Bella, Edward, and Jacob, as well as the Cullens, Wolves, Humans, and Volturi are all back. Julia Jones and Booboo Stewart‘s roles become more prominent in this chapter, as Leah and Seth Clearwater join Jacob‘s new wolf pack. All are joined by new cast members: MyAnna Buring as Tanya Denali; Casey LaBow as Kate Denali; Maggie Grace as Irina Denali; Christian Camargo as Eleazar Denali and Mia Maestro as Carmen Denali. Numerous additional covens from around the world will be seen in 'Breaking Dawn Part 2'. According to Stewart, shooting the wedding ceremony was emotional for everyone. "It just felt so real. The first time I walked down the aisle, just in my regular clothes to go say hi before I put the dress on, and everyone was sitting in the pews, I was like 'Well, thank you for coming to my wedding.' It was so cool." Godfrey is excited for fans to see how Part 1 ends, leaving them breathless to see Part 2. "The final act of Part 1 is traumatic birth itself. Carlisle, Esme, and Emmett have left to try to get food; Edward, Jacob, and Rosalie are left to deliver this child, which has come at an unexpected moment; and Bella's back breaks. The real climax of our movie is, as Bella's about to give birth, the wolves are charging to the Cullen's house. Jacob and Edward are just trying to save Bella‘s life. Will she live through it or not?" What's It All About?

The big day has been finalized and so, the invitations are sent out to those who are invited to see Edward Cullen and Bella Swan tie the knot in what will turn out to be, most unholy matrimony. While there is an air of excitement for many of the guests, there's one who is not impressed. Jacob Black, still filled with conflicting emotions, isn't hanging around and heads for the Cullen house where the wedding will take place. Consumed by his love for Bella, he still believes she is placing herself in grave danger bu marrying into the Cullen vampire family. Meantime, Bella is haunted by a dream in which she and Edward, slaughter all the guests attending the wedding ceremony. Edward alleviates her fears, the wedding goes as planned and the happy couple travel to Brazil for their honeymoon. Here, in an idyllic setting, Edward, passions aroused, takes his virgin bride and consumates their marriage.

The Verdict "With the success of splitting the last 'Potter' book in two, it was only a matter of time before other filmmakers would latch on to the opportunity to make a quick buck. Rather than trim the the book down and finally end this farcical, torturous, 'Twilight' saga, the filmmakers have chosen to follow the money trail, cash in on the good-will of its adoring fans, and give us two doses of what truthfully has been, so far: for everyone other than those poor delusional, brainwashed fans; a load of absolute crap movie-making (with the exception of the original "Twilight") of the worse kind. Other than the disasterous "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" (2002), which cost US$100 million to make and took a paultry US$7,103,973 worldwide and the two Scott Hicks disasters "No Reservations" (2007) & "The Boys Are Back" (2009), 'Breaking Dawn Part 1', would have to be the worse film I have ever seen. It is absolute crap in every sense of the word crap. Words cannot describe how bad the acting, directing and the storyline are. Not that anyone associated with the making of this stinking pile of dog shit gives a damn: they're making money hand over fist. To read the dribble in the film companies production notes is far more entertaining than watching the film. And despite what fans might think about all the bad reviews, I can see why fans of the books have remained so faithful to the films: although I did hear a lot of derogatory remarks from fans leaving the screening I was at. Unfortunately, something else I picked up on was the fans subdued response during the screening. Thankfully the closing scenes (as usual) provided a huge laugh, with both Bella and her unholy child, suffering from red-eye. Beyond the series, unless she can pull a rabbit out of the hat, I can't see much of an acting future for Stewart. Breaking Dawn is not one for the uninitiated. You can't just walk in and see it. Only for the fans. 2 STARS for them and 1/2 a STAR for everyone else." Who Is Playing Who?

Kristen Stewart Robert Pattinson Taylor Lautner Gil Birmingham Billy Burke Sarah Clarke Ty Olsson Ashley Greene Peter Facinelli Elizabeth Reaser Kellan Lutz Nikki Reed Michael Sheen Christian Camargo Mía Maestro Maggie Grace MyAnna Buring Casey LaBow Jackson Rathbone Christopher Heyerdahl Jamie Campbell Bower Angelo Renai

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Bella Swan Edward Cullen Jacob Black Billy Charlie Swan Renée Phil Alice Cullen Dr Carlisle Cullen Esme Cullen Emmett Cullen Rosalie Hale Aro Eleazar Denali Carmen Denali Irina Denali Tanya Denali Kate Denali Jasper Hale Marcus Caius Minister Webber

The Production Team Directed by Bill Condon Screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg Adapted from the Stephenie Meyer nove "Breaking Dawn" Produced by Wyck Godfrey/Stephenie Meyer/Karen Rosenfelt Original Music by Carter Burwell Cinematography by Guillermo Navarro Film Editing by Virginia Katz Casting by Debra Zane Production Design by Richard Sherman Art Direction by Lorin Flemming Supervising Art Director Troy Sizemore Set Decoration by David Schlesinger Costume Design by Michael Wilkinson Run Time 117 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2011 - Summit Films - All Rights Reserved Enduring © - The Movie Pages & Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved. Protected by Australian & International Copyright, Trademark Laws & Intellectual Property Rights.