Customer Reviews

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part I [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(72)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

I just saw "Breaking Dawn" part 1, and I was VERY impressed, even if as a man I am probably not the most typical fan of "Twilight" series. I rather liked all the "Twilight" movies until now and this one is, to my personnal taste, as good as the previous ones - and even in one aspect a little bit better, as Edward and Bella finally become lovers. Below, you will find a short description of what I believe are the best elements of this film, with very limited SPOILERS:

1. Actors. All actors evolved as the serie continued and I believe they all got better with time. Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner are both excellent, but - in my humble opinion - it is Kristen Stewart who in this movie shines the most. Quite a lot of people frequently criticized her actorship claiming that she simply can not play at all and has a very limited assortment of expressions in her tool box. But for me, after reading "Twilight" books, this is how the character of Bella should be. I can hardly picture her wide smiling with all her teeth bared or doing any other highly extraverted things like that. In fact I believe that either by design or by accident Kristen Stewart got the things right about this character - her minimalistic approach to facial expressions actually makes (for me) Bella very believable and also quite likeable. In this part of the story, Bella takes a more dynamic approach to life by taking her destiny firmly under control. She makes important decisions and takes extreme risks, stubbornly resisting the opposite advice of all her family and friends - all of that in a deceptively unassuming way... And Kristen Stewart acted in the movie exactly as I pictured Bella did it, when I read the books. A very good job!

Other actors are also great, with Ashley Greene and Billy Burke being as usual the pillars - but amongst the supporting roles it is Nikki Reed who really gets the most praise from me. She has a much bigger role in this film and she is perfect in it! The one (little) disappointment is Jackson Rathbone, who changed comletely his haircut for this film and as a result his character, Jasper, seems much less impressive, which is a pity. He also seems to appear very little in the "first line", almost as if the director preferred to hide him a little...

2. Visual aspects. As usual, the images of state of Washington are great, but the tropical island where Bella and Edward spend their honey moon is also very pleasantly showed. Dark forests filled with (were)wolves are very much present here and they are a great background for the story.

3. Music. As usual in those series, music and songs have been selected very carefully and with a great taste.

4. The (were)wolf pack. The Quileute wolves are shown here even more and better than in the previous part. The scene of their war council, when they are all in the werewolf form, is absolutely great! The scene when Sam (the alpha male) asserts and confirms his power over the pack is excellent - as good as the description of Jacob's defiance and its consequences.

5. The wedding. A very nice and moving scene with some humour elements, especially when the guests make speeches offering toasts. Emmett, Jessica and Bella's father give here a great show. In the same time Mike Newton obsesses on vampire bridesmaids from the Denali clan, to the point of drooling (and I TOTALLY understand him!). Bella's mum and, suprprise surprise, Rosalie (!) are also real treasures in wedding scenes.

6. Quileute wolves vs. Cullen coven confrontation. This heartbreaking, tense and at moments violent conflict in which both sides are trapped against their will is a great moment in the Twilight saga - and its final resolution is even better! Finally it is true what the Beatles were singing - all you need is love! Babies help too...

7. The fight for Bella's life, Renesmee's bloody birth and Bella's fate - excellent! Those were moments very difficult to film - but the challenge was met succesfully! Nothing more about it to avoid more spoilers, but I was very impressed!

Conclusion: it is an excellent movie which I watched with great pleasure. My wife, who usually is a much harder person to please, loved it too and she is going to see it again with some girlfriends. And we will certainly both wait with great expectations for the "Breaking dawn" part 2. If it was done as well as that one, it will be certainly worth waiting one year to see it...

Being a huge fan of the books and a pretty big fan of the movies, I was blown away at what a great job they did with this movie installment. I loved the visual and audio parallels they drew between the original movie, Twilight, and this movie. For instance (Spoiler Alerts throughout): I loved how they played Flightless Bird during the wedding ceremony and the way the camera circled them kissing in the same manner the camera circled E & B kissing at Prom at the very end of Twilight. It was a subtle, yet stunning way to visually tie the two movies together and really made more of an emotional impact than if they had just shot them straight on and plugged in a different song. That was genius. And that dress...gorgeous. Just as it was described in the book.

I also loved that rather than having one continuous honeymoon "consummation" scene, they broke it up with Bella thinking about certain moments the next morning after looking in the mirror for the first time, where she's no longer a virgin. It was all done so tastefully. The way one's first time should be at that age. Not at some house party or in the back of some guy's car. For those who read the books and knew how Edward did everything he could to exhaust Bella with activities on their honeymoon so she'd be too tired to "try again", you have to admit that Bill Condon did such a great job showing you visually all the things they were doing without either character having to come out and say, I'm/you're trying to exhaust you/me. And it was adorable with KS put on her little nightgown and leaned against the wall...I got married when I was 19 and I felt the exact same way when I put on lingerie for the first time and dreaded walking into the bedroom with my little gown on. I felt like a child playing dress-up, much like it came off Bella felt.

I was also very impressed by the manner with which Bill Condon allowed us to see through the eyes of Jacob for the first time and hear what he hears with regard to the internal dialog between him and the pack. That scene where the wolves were running to the lumber yard and their voices echoed in Jacob's mind...that was so perfectly done. AND, I loved loved loved the way the Sam and Jacob had their battle for alpha. It was as if you, the person watching the movie, was in the mind of a wolf who is being forced into submission by it's Alpha. The CGI team did a great job because I forgot I was watching computer generated wolves and the intensity of the scene felt like I was there witnessing the true dynamic of a wolf pack.

I thought the birth scene was beyond intense. The scene almost mirroring that as it's written in the book. I think they showed just the right amount of Bella's internal agony during her transformation. For those of us who read the books, to say she had a prolonged bout of suffering during her transformation would be an understatement. However, if they had shown more of that in the movie, it would have taken from the torture that Edward was going through thinking he had lost Bella, and Jacob's malevolence towards Renesmee prior to imprinting on her. That whole scene allowed for each character's state of mind to be both seen, visually, and felt, emotionally. Powerfully shot and brilliantly executed.

I imagine the imprinting scene was a difficult one to translate from paper to screen. They did a great job in this as well. Not in any way cheesy, but sweet and breathless...if that makes any sense. The only thing I did not love about it was that the girl/teenager Jacob sees as an older Renesmee appeared to be CGI. They used an actual young girl to play the younger Renesmee, why not use a real person for the older Renesmee too? I'm sure Hollywood has a few young actresses that would have auditioned for the part???

I loved the fight between the wolves and the Cullens at the very end of the movie. In the books, you go from Jacob's perspective where he witnesses Bella's death and then walks into the living room to kill Renesmee, only to imprint on her. And then you go immediately back to Bella's perspective where she's riving in pain while she's transforming into a vampire. I feel Melissa Rosenburg had a stroke of brilliance when she decided to add this scene so that the audience could see what could have happened in the books, but did happen in the movie, during the time period between Jacob imprinting on Renesmee and Bella awakening for the first time as a vampire. Another unexpected and totally welcomed brilliant surprise of this movie.

Another welcome surprise for me was while Bella was at the very end of her transformation. I thought it was a touching visual moment that just before her heart beat for the very last time, we witnessed Bella's memories in a somewhat reverse chronological order, ending with her very first human memory as a baby in the arms of her parents bouncing her in front of a mirror.

But what was not a surprise and what I've been telling my fellow twi-hards the past couple years is the very last scene of the movie. Once I heard they were splitting BD into two parts, I've always maintained there's only one way to end part 1 with truly visual impact...and that is to witness Bella's subtle transformation from a broken human to a perfect vampire, surrounded by the Cullens, with the scene closing in on Bella's perfect facial features, zooming into her perfectly shut eyes...that suddenly open the most gorgeous crimson red....and straight to credits. I actually gave myself a little pat on the back for that one because so much of the movie exceeded my expectations of visual and audio creativity, and yet the last scene ending a certain way was something I was very adamant with my friends about, and sure enough that's how it ends. So maybe now I can revel in having an ounce of the vision that Bill Condon and Melissa Rosenburg possess...hey I'll take that ounce.

Aside from the standout scenes I've mentioned herein, I thought Kristen Stewart did her best portrayal of Bella yet. Her facial expressions alone are so real to each moment they're almost tangible. I've enjoyed the work KS has done prior to the Twilight Saga, and I am so glad these movies have launched her career because I am certain she will be one of the great leading ladies of acting for many decades to come. So to all Twi-hards out there. This movie was amazing. A must see for those who loved the books and fans of the previous movies. I can't wait for it to come out on DVD so that I can add it to my Twilight Saga collection.

When I first heard about the teenage vampire movie "Twilight, I wasn't at all interested. Then, one day I stumbled upon it while searching through tv channels. ZAP!! To my surprise, I was completely absorbed and didn't want it to end.

I can't say for sure how many times I watched the first three Twlight movies. I know I saw "Twilight" and "New Moon" at least ten times each, and "Eclipse" was probably five or six. I found them all wonderfully romantic, exciting and captivating.

I didn't, and still don't, understand how or why I was so intensely drawn into these movies. I feel very close to the characters, as though they're my own family and friends. The most puzzling aspect of this fantasy relationship is the fact that I'm fifty-nine years old. My only source of justification being that Edward is over a hundred.

I also bought all three Twilight Saga CD Soundtracks. The music may have had something to do with my attraction to the fantasy, as I'm highly driven by music. Or maybe I enjoy listening to the music because it connects me to the fantasy.

I'm looking forward to experiencing "The Twilight Sage: Breaking Dawn". Based upon it's predecessors, I'm already giving it a five-star rating.

Indigo Butterfly

THIS MOVIE IS JUST AS BEST AS OTHER TWILIGHT MOVIE THE 1 TO 3, I JUST CAN'T WAIT TO WATCH THE PART 2 OF BREAKING DAWN, MY GOD WHY DO WE NEED TO WAIT AS LONG AS THIS CAN'T THEY JUST MAKE THE PART 2 FASTER SO WE DON'T NEED TO WAIT LONGER, LOL

I went to the midnight premier of Breaking Dawn part 1 and the movie was over in a flash. It was worth the wait and was well made. It was nice seeing Stephanie Meyer during the wedding. There are many high lights out of the book I was worried about (e.g. wedding night, birth, imprinting. All my worries were relieved, once I saw how great they were shown, especially after reading the books. I would like to go see the movie again. Now all us Twihards have to wait another year until the part 2 comes out. I would recommend this movie to anybody. Loved it

I have read books one, two, and four, and I am working on three. I own all the movies (except for this one because it is not available yet). I read this book before I saw the movie so I was looking very forward to it. It was a good movie, however it left out a lot of details that I thought were very important. The honeymoon scene should have been more like the book, and the birth scene should have been less like the book, it was disturbing and gross. They probably left out some of the honeymoon to make it pg-13 instead of R, but that birth scene should have made it R rated! For the first part of the last book, it just was not detailed enough. For me personally, I could have sat through a 3 and 1/2 hour movie at least to have the detail. I hope the last part is much longer and more detailed!

YES, I was a late bloomer when I finallydiscovered the Twilight books. I was never one for reading, let alone these sort of books. I ended up reading all 4 books in two weeks. I have watch the 1st two movies at least 10 times so far. Its pretty bad that I am starting to know the actors words before they say them in the movies!! I was also NEVER a big book reader. I hope that Stephenie Meyer will continue to write more books on these characters from Twilight. (Bella, Edward, Jacob, Alice, Charlie, Renesmea etc...I fell in love with this entire family. I hope and pray Mrs. Meyer will publish the book called Midnight Sun, Edwards story version. PLEASE!!!!

Stephanie Meyer THANK YOU for being, as far as I am concerned, the VERY BEST Author and story teller around. When I read your books I felt as if I was watching the story unfold before my very eyes. I cound not put the books down. I found myself reading till well after 3AM and then still not wanting to stop. I actually cried when I was done with the last book. Especially when it said THE END! Please dont let this be THE END.

I recommed everyone..of any age, I am in my mid 30's and LOVE THESE BOOKS!! BUY them, read them, watch the movies I know you will enjoy them!! Read the books first..it makes the movies even better. Hope you enjoy a much as I have...

This comment is mostly for some "real" men out there.

Here, in Montreal (Québec, Canada), you can't say that you like "Breaking Dawn" if you're a "real" man. It's not cool. It's not manly. People will think of you as weak or "girlie". In general, if you're a "real" man, it's a good thing to say that you went because your girlfriend or your wife forced you. Is it the same where you are? Anyhow, I liked it immensely. And I don't consider myself a "weak" man nor do I think that I'm more in touch with my feminine side than any other regular Joe. My point is: I doubt seriously anyone who destroys this movie on the simple basis that it's a "chick flick".

If you didn't like it because of its narrative structure or whatever technicality, it's one thing. I can respect that. This film, like the others, isn't an intellectual movie made to re-invent cinema. "Breaking Dawn" employs clichés after clichés and I would even describe it as "cheesy"... but in a good way. It is honest with what it is trying to achieve. The characters are consistent and true to themselves. The movie starts and we're right there in the action. We don't waste any time with any sort of intro. The scenes flow very well and the rhythm is always good. The actors (especially Kirsten Stewart) are better and better. I didn't think the fourth book would make a great movie, let alone a two-part movie but I stand corrected. This first part was awesome. All to the honor of the director. I was sad that it was over. The book is well respected. And the ending is just as great as the one in "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part One". You have to remain seated through the end credits though cause there is one more scene later on that will set up the next installment. During the projection, you will even spot Stephanie Meyer, the author of the novels, in one of the scenes. She's smiling directly at us (we're seeing her through Bella's point of view) and it's touching cause this whole thing is "her baby".

No really, this film as a lot going for it. If you dismiss it on the simple fact that you're a "real" man and that the characters talk too much about their feelings, well maybe you should re-evaluate your own relationship with your tender-half. Maybe you're jealous of the love Bella and Edward have for each other? Maybe you feel like you're not showing enough affection the way Edward or Bella do?

Go see it. Let your manly armor down for two hours. After that, if you have constructive criticism, then God bless you. I'm all ears.

I believe this one to be the worse in the series. By now they could of gotten acting lessons for the three main characters. Bella looked great as a starry eyed bride, but later when it came to despair and suffering it was so sad. Her inability to act is perhaps inadvertently stated when she asks Edward, "Can't you see that I am happy?" The answer is obvious. "No. Because you can't act." I did enjoy the intended comedy aspect of the wedding and the double entente of Jacob having 2 left feet and Bella saying, "I will soon be dead to you." Vaudevillian drum roll please.

The talking wolves are still cartoonish. I felt like I was watching some kid's movie with talking animals. The soundtrack was too loud. The soundtrack should enhance a good scene and not try to create a good scene because the acting and dialouge are substandard. My niece grew up reading and watching this series. It was sacrilege for anyone to imply that the characters are less than "A" actors. (BTW she is team Jacob.) She is in her freshman year at college and watched this with her home girls who would all go to these movies and get all goo-goo eyed over Jacob. Now the girls were howling (pun intended). They were actually laughing at the serious scenes because of the poor acting. Twilight has insulted its viewers by making millions of dollars and not investing it back into the series.

I suspect the DVD will include an unrated edition with the cut sex scenes to give us something more to howl at.

Bill Condon did an Excellent Job with Breaking Dawn Part 1 by staying close to the book. The wedding scene was beautifully done. I Love Bella's wedding dress very much. The Reception Ceremony was extremely funny with Charlie & Emmett. I truly didn't care about Jessica and her jealousy act. Plus Rene's singing did not catch my attention. I Loved the way Jacob interacted with Bella at her reception until he got angry and almost ruined Bella & Edward's moment due his childish temper even though he was truly looking after Bella's well being. However she is married now and you can't interfere with her decisions. The Honeymoon was Perfect! Now I have to clarify due to critics not having the facts straight. Edward & Bella consumed their marriage twice not once like some people speculated. Their first night Edward felt terrible for the after bruises Bella had from being intimate and made sure to keep Bella busy by the time is was bed time by doing regular site seeing activities. Until Bella finally woke up from a dream of desperation to mate with her husband once again. This is when Edward & Bella conceived. The fact is Edward & Bella slept together twice. Plus also please note Edward is 109 years old not 104. Please read the books before the facts are written. Also, Bella's pregnancy and make-up effects were Spectacular. I was feeling so bad for Bella the way she looked and what the baby was doing to her. The birth scene was extremely scary to watch as a Mother myself knowing this would truly be a lifetime experience to forget having a c-section this way. Plus the imprinting was perfectly explained. However people always love to judge. Please note Jacob is a Protector, Brother and Guardian for the moment until Renesmee turns 16. Then she makes the decision if they stay together more than friends. This is Tribal legend. Plus please note when the wolf pack were speaking in Jacob's mind is through their thoughts. Yes, I know this is a fictional story but please note wolves in real life do communicate mentally they don't speak or turn into humans. So please critics let's just enjoy the movie. This was Perfectly done just like our book was written. I can't wait now to see Breaking Dawn Part 2 on November 16, 2012.
There were parts that were edited from the books, and scenes that were shorten to give an accurate explanation. However, I know Summit will make sure these deleted or extended scenes are added in the movie. Plus the mature DVD I know they would release for the adult audience to watch as a Director's Cut.