Hi all, this tumblr mainly exists as a way of tracking all the movies I've been watching and some of the initial thoughts, and general feelings, I've had about them.
5/5 - Fantastic movies; movies which need to be seen and enjoyed by everyone.
4/5 - Movies which are very good but don’t have that spark which compels you to make others watch them as well.
3/5 - Average movies; watchable and enjoyable, but nothing which elevates them higher. The baseline all movies are given before watching.
2/5 - Can be watched but really bland and forgettable.
1/5 - Minimal to no reason to watch these films. It may have some redeeming factors e.g. it’s so bad it’s good or there’s one character that’s awesome enough to make it not a total waste of time.
0/5- Total waste of time. Nothing redeemable about these films.
As with every review blog/site, this is all my own personal opinion so feel free to take everything with a grain of salt.
Also I'm Scottish so all reviews will be in UK English. Get used to theatre, colour and words ending in -ised.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
#435/#152 Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2
With the birth of Edward (Robert Pattenson) and Bella’s (Kirsten Stewart) child Renesmee, the Volturi move to destroy the Cullens for creating an immortal child. This pushed the Cullens to call for aid from the rest of the vampire community and prepare for a showdown.
IT’S FINALLY OVER! We never have to hear about this God awful franchise ever again. Life is good.
That said this was easily the best of all five of the Twilight films. It’s back to the unintentional humour of movies 1 and 2 rather than the soul crushing boredom of movies 3 and 4. It even managed to be intentionally funny for the first time in the series as well.
We also got some good interactions with Charlie (Billy Burke), the beacon of shining light in these films usually, and with leader of the Volturi Aro (Michael Sheen), the absolute highlight of the entire series. Sheen is one of the only actors from the series who seems to know that he is in garbage so he just has as much fun with his role as possible and it is glorious to watch. I could easily have seen him purely reacting to people for the entire run time and it would have been time well spent.
Once again, the main characters are the least interesting people in the entire film. Don’t care about Bella’s turning because it has no repercussions or consequences, don’t care about Edward because he doesn’t do anything in this one and really don’t care about Jacob’s new found pedophilia for Renesmee. Call it whatever you want Twilight fans but he is protecting a young girl until she grows up (where she will actually be 7 but look mid-20’s) in order to be with her (read: have sex with her). That’s grooming and it is easily the creepiest aspect of this whole series.
The people the Cullens band together, again, all seem about a 100 times more interesting than the Cullens themselves. There is an actual honest to God vampire among them. He drinks blood, he’s seductive and he’s remorseless over killing. The only reason he sticks around to help is to try and boff the blonde vampire who can produce electroshock attacks. Where’s his movie? (Side-note: I believed their romance a Hell of a lot more than I ever did our leads).
The crowning jewel of the film however is definitely (and this is all spoilers) the giant supernatural brawl. Both the good and the bad sides get decimated during this attack. It’s more akin to what you would expect to get from a large scale X-men showdown than Twilight. People are dying left and right in some really inventive ways even before all of the cool super powers come into play. It’s the best thing to ever happen in Twilight because SOMETHING ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN TWILIGHT…and then it was all a dream and everyone is fine. Fuck you movie. I don’t care if it is the way the book ended you actually had some consequences for once and then you lost your nerve right at the end. Poor show.
When compared to any other real film this movie is still horrible given the acting, plot, structure, lack of actual payoff etc, but I can see myself rewatching this one just to enjoy the final battle and other characters again. Unfortunately, these bits still only take up about a fifth of the film’s run time and the rest is Bella/Edward/Jacob nonsense. As I said at the beginning though; it’s done. We never have to be subjected to this crap again and that’s the greatest thing I’m taking away from this. 2/5
Wilhelm Scream #31
#256 Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1
Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) get married, have sex and have a baby that almost kills her but doesn’t. That’s about it.
Recap of my feelings on the series:
Books: Never read them, couldn’t pay me to read them.
Twilight: Unintentionally one of the funniest films of that year
New Moon: Same as above and my review here
Eclipse: Mind numbingly boring movie with none of the unintended comedy of the earlier films. See here for review.
Needless to say I’m not a fan or the demographic for these movies. I do however ‘enjoy’ movies 1 and 2 in the same way I enjoy The Room or Troll 2. Fantastic movies for riffing on, so therefore I decided to give no 4 a shot hoping 3 had been a one off and it would return to hilariously bad. No such luck.
While not as soul sapping as sitting through no 3; no 4 is still as boring, as bland and as devoid of unintended humour as its predecessor. In a 2 hour movie it takes 1 hour 15 minutes for any semblance of a plot to kick in and that’s just uncalled for.
A couple of my main thoughts on this film because if I list everything which bugged me about it I’ll be here all day:
- Billy Burke (Bella’s dad Charlie) is still the best character as he’s the only relatable one in these movies.
- You still don’t care about any of the leads, or pretty much any of the secondary characters.
- Jacob (Taylor Lautner) falls in love with Bella’s 10 minute old baby adding a further creepy feel of pedophilia to the series on top of the already present stalking, abuse and possession. Ya know, for teenage girls.
The only thing I will give this film credit for is the make up/CGI used to make Stewart all ‘cracked out’ when the baby is eating her from the inside out. That legitimately made her look horrible and as if she was wasting away before your eyes, so props to the makeup team. Not a damn other thing is worth mentioning in this film in a positive light.
At this point I’m just so tired with this franchise and wish it would just go away. Unfortunately we collectively need to put up with it for another year before it falls into obscurity. 0/5 and 2/5 for riffing. So not worth the effort.
P.S. The lip bite count was down to a measly 23 bites in 117 minutes this year. Poor show.
