MOVIE REVIEWS: THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 is due to open in thousands of theaters at midnight tonight, but several major critics are in no rush to get out early reviews, probably figuring that the teenage girls who are the prime target for this franchise are not avid readers of their comments. Besides, it must not be easy to find inventive ways to heap scorn on it. The critics who did in fact have their reviews published today seem to have suffered no shortage of insults to hurl at the movie. “Let’s face it,” Scott Bowles remarks in USA Today, “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 would be a blockbuster if the film were about Edward and Bella watching an apple rot.” Bowles thinks the new installment represents an improvement, “as its stars go from sullen kids to sullen young adults, where their expressions look more natural.” Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune does acknowledge that the latest Twilight movie does reveal “a flash or two of real filmmaking … enough to save it from pure lousiness.” And while many fans may have been looking forward to seeing Edward and Bella in the sack together following their wedding, most critics suggest that there’s not much to be seen. In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert remarks, “Yes, the most eagerly awaited deflowering in recent movie history takes place entirely off-screen. That something momentous took place is indicated 14 days after the wedding ceremony, when Bella (Kristen Stewart) urps in the morning and discovers she is pregnant. … Can humans and vampires mate? What’s the blood chemistry on that? What will be in the wee one’s bottle? Milk, or the unthinkable?”