Twilight sucks...and not in the good way

The Twilight Saga comes to a much needed close with its final instalment. The main problem with this film is that Meyer’s final book barely contained enough content for one film, let alone two franchise-bleeding epics. Consequently, this film ended up being two hours in which essentially, nothing happened.

The film begins with Bella opening her eyes as a vampire for the first time, and soon after meeting her and new husband Edward’s, creepy daughter (ridiculously CGI enhanced, and even more ridiculously named Renesmee). Renesmee, being only half vampire, grows at least a year older in every scene, it seems, until she morphs into the 11 year old actress Mackenzie Foy – who took on her on-screen mother’s blank, miserable expressions as if she had inherited them. Soon she is mistaken for an immortal child, i.e. a child turned into a vampire (forbidden by the Volturi under punishment of death – pretty self-explanatory – imagine a toddler with bloodlust). Alice, aided by her visions, sees that the Volturi, led by Aro (Sheen), are coming to punish the Cullens, who then begin the task of rounding up their friends from around the world in an attempt to make the Volturi listen before they are unfairly slaughtered.

For creatures that supposedly can move at lightning speed, the Volturi take a hell of long time to show up – well over an hour, leaving plenty of time for Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner to gaze longingly at the camera. There are too many extended, self- indulgent shots of the three walking, or driving a car, or sitting in chairs; as if these inane functions are somehow special because they are performed by beautiful people. More likely, Condon realised he wouldn’t have enough content to fill a feature length film, and had to pad it out in the most boring way imaginable. The first hour, therefore, was excruciatingly slow paced and full of sickening happy family/new house tweenage fantasy.

Stewart and Pattinson are patently too immaculate and beautifully turned out to be new parents, probably something to do with their parenting method, which should definitely be converted into a book for expecting parents. Occasionally pose at a piano with your child, then leave the difficult parts to your undead family and a pseudo-paedophile wolf (I’ll get onto him). This method leaves plenty of time for gazing at each other/oneself longingly and getting it on (apparently when vampires have sex they sparkle – who knew?). Lautner has been busy since the last film; adding 6 extra muscles to his stomach, which definitely isn’t a bad thing, as well as imprinting (a wolfy form of arranged marriage) onto Renesmee. The latter is vaguely unsettling, as while we are assured it is involuntary and not deviant in nature, it’s still more than a bit creepy.

So finally, the Volturi show up. Since seeing Sheen play Hamlet on stage last year, I’m always a bit sad to see him in this franchise, as I think he’s too good an actor for the role. Nonetheless he plays psychopathic Aro in a suitably twisted and humorous fashion. The ensuing fight scenes between the Cullens, their friends and the Volturi were actually well constructed, and Ashley Greene (Alice) is awesomely bad-ass. More time should have been spent on the vampires the Cullens’ took the trouble of collecting, however, as they had some pretty interesting powers, but mostly just stood around looking scary. Some shock moments too, causing a few screams from the audience, as the film deviates from the book in an annoying twist.

All in all, despite a reasonable ending (the fight scenes, not the horrific video montage of Edward and Bella’s love story), this film felt empty and self indulgent, its moments of wit drowned out by everything else. Die-hard fans will probably revel in Edward and Bella’s fantasy ending, but even as part of a franchise, this film is less than convincing. Ultimately, the final book should never have been split into two.