If you’re not into sparkly vampires
and mushy love stories, you might want to skip this one.
The movie, which follows Bella Swan and Edward Cullen through their wedding, their honeymoon and the birth of their child, is a mostly faithful adaptation of the first half of the book. However, there’s not enough going on to justify a movie that long. The long, lingering, dramatic looks seem to take up half the movie. It’s incredibly slow.
The most interesting part of the movie
for me was the wolves. Jacob Black’s pack splits because of the half-vampire
baby, which means we got some great shots of giant dogs growling at
each other and skulking around in the woods. The movie added more drama
to the encounters than the book had, but it was worth it. The scary
shot of a huge wolf silently backing into the dark forest was great.
The one thing this didn’t lack (besides drama and long looks) was great imagery. The colors are vibrant, the scenes beautiful. I really enjoyed the dramatic shift during the course of the movie. Bella starts out as a pretty young woman in a kind of risqué wedding dress (that I secretly loved) and not-too-revealing lingerie that shows off her tan. In the second half of the movie, she’s sick, sunken and pale, with dark shadows around her eyes. The transformation is amazing.
Having seen all four “Twilight”
movies, I can say this is probably the best, even if it could have easily
lost an hour and still gotten the story across. However, it is not a
great movie. It can’t stand alone; if it wasn’t an adaptation of
a very popular book, it would have been an instant flop. There just
isn’t enough plot to go around. “Twilight” – at least the fourth
book – just doesn’t translate well to screen except in the imagery.
If you’re a diehard “Twilight” fan, you’ll probably enjoy seeing Bella and Edward finally get married, and you can appreciate the plot. If you’re a just casual fantasy fan or you haven’t read or didn’t enjoy the books, don’t let your family drag you out of your turkey-induced haze and into this two-hour snoozer.
