Yeah, I did it. Last night I went as Team Sceptic-but-still-hooked and saw the conclusion to the Twilight Saga,
Breaking Dawn Part 2. It wasn't as dull as I'd expected (due to the twisted end), but it wasn't as upmarket aspiring as I'd hoped the finale would be, either. At times it was cute. Mostly it was the same naïve, antagonizing cuddling and fiddling as it has been for the last couple of years.
I know, for a 'true horror fan' the Twilight Saga is an abomination with its salad chopping, interior designing, forest hiking, teenage stalking, suprisingly slow moving, 'tofu vegetarian', sparkling vampires. It does take the humanization of vampires to an extreme when discarding the general traits of the aristocratic fiend among high society that used to identify a vampire. And it does also (as I've stated in a
previous entry) set the female role back to the late 50's, as it has been doing for the last four movies. And even in this last installement Isabella Swan (
Kristen Stewart) is never given enough space to reclaim her role as a strong and independent vampire female. What I liked most about the novel were the parts where she exercised her ability to project her mental shield and use it externally to weild against her enemies. Although playing with the thought of Bella having her way with flat-faced hubby Edward (
Robert Pattinson) any time she wants, all Bella's traits as a vampire (the strength, the hightened senses, the ferocity, the hunger, the untamed traits of a newborn) seem diminshed as she lives in the shadow of her husband's thought of her finally being an 'equal'. Or should I say the obedient wife? All this gender and race (human/vampire/wolf) comparison both irritates and sets me off. Why does this keeping on happening? Why would a female writer deliberately make her female characters inferior, as they seem less worthy than their male mates?
And
Breaking Dawn Part 2 does become very doozy and cotton candy-like with the post-honeymoon cuddling and post-transformative, weirdly enough, boring sex. All talk and no action, so to speak. The movie uses the same blue-grey production design that was also used in the previous as well as the first movie, which becomes a bit mundane after having stared at it for more than an hour. The wolves are still the same digital disaster as in the prequels and the newborn half-human, half-vampire Renesmee (what absurd name is that?) is also digitalized in her infancy. The same effects that make the fighting scene(s) a bit tacky and way too PG to actually make a good supernatural fight. One clever switch is pulled as the movie nears its end and this movie screen twist is probably the only innovative surprise from its original novel. The rest was a mediocre ending to a mediocre story.
To read more on my opinions on The Twilight Saga, check out
this previous post from 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment