The end is nigh… (thankfully)

The Twilight
Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1
DIRECTED BY: Bill Condon
STARRING: Kristen
Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Dakota Fanning
CERT: 12A

The Twilight movies are the kind of movies that critics like to call “review-proof”, the suggestion being that no matter what the reviewer says, the public is going to flock to see the film regardless, probably in record numbers.
These critics, of course, are deluded, since nobody pays a blind bit of notice to anything they say about any film at any time, ever. If they do, it is with the intention of proving the reviewer wrong, like one acquaintance of mine who only goes to see films that I express a profound dislike for. He spends a lot of time in the cinema.
We all know the fans don’t give two hoots what anyone says about the Twilight films and how terribly bad they are – so bad, as I wrote here recently, that they should come with a psychological warning about unsupervised consumption.
What I failed to take into account when I wrote that, however, is the fact that when young girls are supervised while watching the latest Twilight, it is usually by their mothers, who are just as infatuated with this stuff, and maybe more so.
What’s really, really bad about the Twilight series, however, is not the movies, it is the books on which they are based.
I believe I have mentioned here before that my teenage daughter is a Stephanie Meyer fan, and that she insisted I read the first novel. Seventeen CAT scans later, the doctors still couldn’t quite figure out why I was suddenly reduced to a drooling, stupefied zombie. Their best guess, according to my wife, was that I had retreated into what they called a “defensive coma”, in order to protect my mind from some unidentified mental trauma.
I came out of it eventually and the first thing I did was lock my daughter in the attic on a diet of Easi Singles – the only thing small enough to fit under the door. Sadly, it didn’t cure her. A few nights ago she returned from the new Twilight and declared it to be “brilliant, just like the book!”
This time we put her in the basement. In chains. If she hadn’t mentioned the book we might have left it at that and not gouged her eyes out.
Breaking Dawn is the last of the novels, conveniently broken up into two movies, all the better to fleece the little dearies and their mammies for maximum box office. The old Harry Potter trick, magically making money disappear. But then, as with all magic tricks, audience participation is voluntary.
So here’s Part 1, picking up as Bella (Stewart) and her pasty-faced boyfriend Edward (Pattinson) prepare for the big day, the celebration of their undead love. Happy times, though you’d never guess by the heads on them, still sulky after all these years. It’s no easier to guess how wolfman Jacob  (Lautner) feels about it all. His reaction is to rip his shirt off and go running in the woods, roaring his head off. But that’s what he tends to do whatever the mood, so who knows what’s going on inside that shape-shifting skull of his. Probably not much.
The wedding is a lovely looking affair, and might have looked even nicer with a big smile or two. Understandable enough, though, that daddy Charlie (Billy Burke) is not jumping for joy. He has let it be known that he owns a gun, and if anything should happen to his baby girl, then he knows how to use it. Which is all very well but it won’t really be much use unless it shoots garlic-tipped stakes, or silver bullets, depending on the offender.
The vows over, it’s off to exotic Brazil for the honeymoon, a clearly energetic affair that leaves the hotel room in what you might call a state of rock‘n’roll disrepair, and leaves the bride looking like she’s had a close encounter with a lorry.
Soon she discovers that the consummation has produced results of a family nature, and breaks the news in a fashion that I’m sure was intended to be wonderfully dramatic, but instead is reminiscent of the Austin Powers scene where Frau Farbissina announces her pregnancy to Dr Evil, “I’m laaaaate!”
But what will this offspring be? Will it be human, vampire, or some class of hybrid beast? Will it kill its poor mother before it even sees the light of day? And for that matter, how is it that the baby’s daddy can wander about the place at will during daylight hours? I believe Bram Stoker had some rules about that.
In any case, Jacob does some more shirt-ripping and roaring, which could mean anything. We do know his fellow wolfmen are not happy with this new development at all, and decide that the child must die lest it grow up to become king of the forest, and probably the universe. Which leaves Jacob in a bit of a tight spot, the old head versus heart dilemma. The head tells him he looks best in black, the heart says don’t worry about the color, just rip the damn thing off.
Tune in next year when you’ll hear Dr Bob say, “With dreary, mopey parents like these two, will this poor child ever be happy? And hey, I know we’ve reached the end of the line but is there any way we can keep making these stupid movies?” Ah yes, my old friend. There’s always a way.