"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1" (PG-13) Format: DVD, Blu-ray
Taylor Lautner remains an unreliable, wildly uneven actor. His line readings range from fine to passable to stilted and awkward, sometimes all within the same scene.
The wolf pack — the five Native Americans of Quileute descent who morph into werewolves — are played by actors chosen for their six-pack abs, not their talents. And the computer-generated werewolves still look cheap and cartoonish.
But despite all that, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1" does something the three previous "Twilight" movie didn't: This one draws you close and keeps you there — and, for those of us who haven't read Stephenie Meyer's novel, delivers some surprising, even shocking turns.
As the movie opens, the long and tortured courtship between the teenage Bella (Kristen Stewart) and her vampire boyfriend Edward (Robert Pattinson) has reached an end, and they are finally preparing to marry.
The film hurtles towards Bella and Edward's big day with a sense of purpose and drive, giving us hints along the way (such as Bella's nightmares) that this couple may not necessarily live happily ever after.
A long sequence in which the newlyweds honeymoon off the coast of Brazil and start having sex is easily the best, most engrossing stretch of any "Twilight" movie to date.
Bella winds up pregnant — and her baby starts to grow inside her at an alarming speed. The birth of Bella and Edward's child will have far-reaching consequences, most of which won't be settled until "Part 2" arrives in November.
The biggest compliment you can pay "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 1" is that the entire series could have ended with this movie, and I would have been satisfied — silly werewolves and all.
— Rene Rodriguez, McClatchy Newspapers
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