The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012) - Movie Review

Yawn...

I'm only kidding.  Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 isn't that bad.  In fact, it's easily the best of the Twilight franchise, but that's like saying that Hurricane Katrina is only like the fifth worst natural disaster in the US.  Yes, the Twilight series is a natural disaster that the world may never recover from.

I turn around during the all the screaming during the opening credits, and I see a guy in a Raiders jersey sitting with his girlfriend with this look on his face.  I can only call it 'regret'.  There are moments where if you're willing to brave the crowds, you may find yourself regretting seeing this so soon, or plugging your ears.  Hell, I saw people who wanted to be there plugging their ears at points.

All kidding aside, it's really not that bad.  It's still not a particularly good movie though, but it seems that they finally realized how silly this all is and went with it.  There's actually a good amount of laughs in the movie, especially in the first half.  Some of this is intentional, and some of it is was more unintentionally hilarity.  I can't hate it too much for that, because even the audience seemed to be aware of it.

So, when we last left Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella (Kristen Stewart), Bella gives birth to Renesmee (a name I really hope that people don't start giving their kids), and is finally turned into a vampire.  Bella has to also deal with the weirdness of Jacob (Taylor Lautner) imprinting on their infant daughter.  Renesmee is rapidly growing (Mackenzie Foy), and the Volturi become aware of her and believe she's a threat.  Alice (Ashley Greene) has a vision that the Volturi are coming for her, so the Cullens gather other vampire clans to rally and prepare for the inevitable showdown. Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) hopes they can avoid a conflict, but where's the fun in that, right?

As more vampires arrive, we find that many of them have a superpower that normally you wouldn't attribute to vampires.  Even the others seemed to be surprised by what they could do.  It's like they were making an X-Men movie with how diverse their powers were, but then remembered this was a movie about werewolves and vampires.   Speaking of diversity, another thing that I found silly about this was that each clan that arrived was a total ethnic or cultural stereotype.  It's not offensive, but it was just kind of ridiculous at times.

While this is happening, Bella is learning to use her new powers.  This is a part of the film that irritated me in that Twilight tries to convince you that someone that's been a vampire for a few days/weeks is somehow stronger that someone that's been a vampire for years, or even decades. It goes against everything I've ever seen in vampire lore.  They also have to remind Bella how to be human again, and it was hilarious to see them remind Bella to blink, which is ironic considering how much Kristen Stewart blinked during the previous movies.  It felt like that was another example of the film being self-aware.

I wish I could tell you there's more to the story, but that's honestly all there is to it.  There's still no reason Part 1 and Part 2 couldn't have been easily edited into a single movie, but I get it: money. The pacing is languid for the first three-quarters.  It's just lots of boring conversation and people just setting around.  Many scenes go nowhere, and simply did not need to be in the film.  We all know what's coming, so just get to it.

Now this part is going to be a bit of spoiler, so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want anything spoiled. The ending of this film is a total cop-out.  I won't say exactly what happens, but the way it plays out, it basically means there was never any real consequence or sacrifice by anyone in the story.  It really undercut the film, and ruined the one truly tense sequence of the entire movie series.  It's especially irritating because this was the only part where I actually cared about what was happening, and then it's all gone.

I will say that that final 10-15 minutes of the movie are genuinely entertaining, and they got away with the maximum amount of violence you could probably throw into a PG-13 movie.  They even seemed to save all the best effects for that final sequence.  On the other hand, the special effects outside of that final battle were absolutely terrible.  They used CG in places where they could have just used practical effects, and it would have looked 10 times better.  What's wrong, were you trying to maximize profits by spending the absolute minimum you could to make the film? Seriously, there was stuff that looked worse than YouTube videos or commercials I've seen recently.  Hell, at one point they have a CG baby.  A baby!  You couldn't just use an actual baby? Plus, they used special effects where you didn't need to.  Vampires constantly use their super-speed power to simply walk across the room for no reason.  It didn't add anything to the story, and it just felt lazy.

I'm not going to say anything about the acting at this point, because you know what you're going to get by now.  I will say that I enjoyed more of the supporting characters.  Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies) has a small, but enjoyable role.  Billy Burke does well, but takes a back seat again even though he's kicking ass on Revolution.  Michael Shannon is back as Aro, and he's so over the top that it was hard to not enjoy his screen time. Even "Bunk" from The Wire shows up for a cameo.

I have to credit director Bill Condon and writer Melissa Rosenberg for finally making something out of this.  Granted, there's only so much they can do with the story and dialog since the source material is so weak, but they were at least able to minimize the awfulness as much as they could. I was ready to give up after what they did with Part 1.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 succeeds simply because it's the first of the series that I didn't hate.  It is honestly the best of the series and I guess there's something to be said for going out on a high note.  It does suffer from awful special effects, slow pacing and the same bad acting and dialog, but what else can we expect at this point?  Fans should be pleased, and if you're someone that gets dragged to this by your girlfriend, just stay strong until that last 15 minutes.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Apparition (2012) - Movie Review

I try to give every movie the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes you can tell 15 minutes into a movie that you're watching something horrible.  The Apparition, is a special kind of horrible.  It's so incompetent that I cannot believe it exists.

The movie's prologue shows of a group of people in the 1970s doing some kind of paranormal experiment.  It consisted of them standing around a table and proving it can move if you can't see what their feet are doing. At the end they take a group picture, and everyone is all smiles, so you're left to wonder what the point of that was.  It doesn't setup anything ominous.

Then, we fast forward to present time and a group of college kids are trying to replicate the same pointless experiment even though the last one proved nothing. This time 'something' gets out though.

We now skip to a young couple, Kelly and Ben (Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan), moving into a new home. You get to spend time watching them run errands to Costco and do chores around the house.  The dialog that these two have is so terrible that you question how they are even a couple.  The shots of the housing development are clearly trying to clue to you in to the fact that something is coming, you know like a 'poltergeist' or something. but the movie just won't get on it it.  It's scary to think how much time this movie wastes even though it's barely 80 minutes. There's maybe 5-10 minutes of actual story here.

The Apparition was written and directed by Todd Lincoln, and this was not a good feature film debut.  I can't imagine how this got pitched.  I think it might have been something like this:

Idea Guy:  "Okay, I have an idea for a movie.  It's called The Apparition."

Moron that Green-lit the Movie:  "What's it about?"

IG:  "It's about a young couple that gets haunted in their house by an apparition."

MTGTM:  "So, it's like Paranormal Activity.  People like those movies."

IG:  "Yeah, but towards the end, we'll have the girl from The Grudge show up randomly."

MTGTM:  "Even better!  What else happens?"

IG:  "Well the apparition does all kinds of mean stuff like open doors and move furniture when they aren't looking, mess up their closet, make loud sounds all throughout the house, and cause all kinds of black mold."

MTGTM:  "So this apparition is kind of a dick then.  What else happens?"

IG:  "That's pretty much all I can think of."

MTGTM:  "I think we're gonna pa..."

IG:  "Oh wait!  We can have Ashley Greene from Twilight spend half the movie walking around in next to nothing..."

MTGTM:  "She's hot!  I'm sold!"

IG:  "...but never actually get naked.  We can even have a gratuitous shower scene that reveals nothing."

MTGTM:  "Ah shit!  I already said 'sold', didn't I?"

IG:  "Yes, you did.  No takebacks!"

That pretty much sums up the whole movie.  There's nothing remotely scary about the film, and all it does is borrow ideas from other films.  Everyone acts illogically throughout.  For example, once they've been haunted for a day or two and terrified, instead of getting out of the house and getting a hotel, they decide that the best thing to do is pitch a small tent in the back yard.  Yes, I'm sure that will protect you.

Later, it becomes clear that Ben is part of the earlier experiments, and his former partner is desperately trying to warn him, but he refuses to acknowledge it.  As if ignoring everything will make it go away, even though you are clearly seeing that something's wrong.

When they do catch up with his former partner, Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton, I'm sorry), he proceeds to explain what is going on with a string of nonsense that just makes you roll your eyes at its ridiculousness.  The made up words he said in the Harry Potter films were more realistic.  Then, he has a plan to stop the apparition, when it's clear he never understood what he was dealing with in the first place.

The apparition itself is inconsistent.  Sometimes, it's merely harassing people, and other times it has the ability to instantly fuse matter.  If it's that powerful, then what's the point?  Just kill everyone.  Yet, at one point, it attempts to kill by smothering a person in a bed sheet.  Yes, death by bed sheet.

I feel bad for Ashley Greene.  I'm sure she's trying to get out from the shadow of the Twilight films, but movies like The Apparition are not going to help.  If anything, the only people that might be scared by this film are little kids that like Twilight and go see it because of Ashley Greene.  I'm sorry Ashley.  You're a gorgeous girl and I hope you get a chance to do something better next time.

It's one of those movies that turns unintentionally funny a third of the way through the film.  It says a lot when the largest laugh of the movie was when someone in the audience yawned.  However, "Your house killed my dog" has my vote for the funniest line of the year.

The Apparition is simply one of the worst films of the year.  It's one of the most boring, pointless and nonsensical films I've seen in a long time.  There is absolutely nothing redeeming about it on any level.  Just forget it exists.

0.5 (out of 5) Death Stars