Finally finishing out the series, this is the second portion of the film adaptation of the last book in the Twilight series and is marginally better than the first because, at some point, things happen even if it is a cruel bait and switch.

When we last left Bella (Kristin Stewart) she had just turned into a vampire after giving birth to a mutant hellspawn baby that had to be gnawed out of her. She awakes to find out that the baby is growing at a rapid rate and that her best friend and some time love interest Jacob (Taylor Lautner) has ‘imprinted’ on her child which is not at all like creepy pedophilia or convenient dues ex machina to get out of the love triangle that has been going for the majority of the series. So the poorly named Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy) grows really fast and is the size of a four year old almost immediately because why let caring for a baby get in the way of lukewarm vampire romance. In relatively short order, while they are out playing in the forest, Renesmee is seen by Irina (Maggie Grace) who thinks that Bella and Edward (Robert Pattinson) have made an Immortal Child which is strictly forbidden because children who are made into Vampires never mature past being children and are thus impossible to control. Without consulting them in any way to learn that this is actually a half-vampire half-human hybrid, Irina goes to tell the vampire aristocracy, the Volturi, on them so that the Volutri can purposely walk towards them with stoic looks and costumes out of Sergeant Pepper to mete out justice for the crime. The Cullen family is alarmed to learn this and realize that they must spring into action by finding as many vampires as they can to bear witness that Renesmee is not an Immortal Child. Simply calling up the Volturi is not an option as they will not listen and having calm conversation is right out. This makes a small amount of sense given that their leader Aro (Michael Sheen) has a habit of charging vampire covens with crimes so that he can steal members with useful powers. So they go out looking for friends to their cause to stand with them and set up dramatic entrances later.

I have made no secret about how much I hate this series and the previous installment was by far the worst of them. Looking back on that review, just about everything that was said from a film-making standpoint is true here as well. The performances are stiff and wooden, except for Sheen who seems to think that the world will end if he doesn’t chew every bit of scenery available, with blocking that ensures that everyone stands like they are in an American Apparel ad at all times. The effects are horrifyingly bad with floaty CGI characters and snuggly werewolves that look like maybe they could tear apart a rolled up newspaper if you gave them about an hour. Again, the hair and make up makes everyone look like three day old dead hookers found in a mattress in a seedy hotel at the edge of town.

I blame the majority of this on Bill Condon and these continued problems are expected as it is the same director telling the same continuous story. Having read the books, I feel like there was no good reason to make two movies out of the last book. Sure, it has a high page count but those pages are filled with self indulgent nonsense that does not translate to screen. In terms of things actually happening in Breaking Dawn there is maybe 20 minutes of screen time if you stretch out some of the longer looks into Edward’s eyes a bit. So much of this movie could be montaged I wish Ang Lee would have directed it.

As much as Condon is at fault, you cannot ignore how grossly substandard the source material is here. This half of the book essentially just deals with finding allies, training a bit, and discussing how awesome Bella is now that she is a vampire and, apparently, a Shield. This means her vampire power is to stymie the powers of other vampires which makes sense given that she stymies the hopes and dreams of just about everyone she comes in contact with. This all leads to pretty much nothing as the series ends with a whimper. For a moment, it looks like the film version has grown some balls, but alas, we are left with the same wet noodle ending as the book.

I don’t want to give away spoilers but there was a moment there where I was actually engaged and surprised by Breaking Dawn part 2. For a moment I thought that I could get over the fact that the effects were bad and the action scenes looked like a bunch of Abercrombie & Fitch models tearing each other’s heads off and just enjoy the carnage. In the end, even that was taken away and I was left with the blue balls inevitable when looking for any measure of satisfaction with this series.

The performances, as mentioned above, are uniformly terrible with two exceptions. Billy Burke again turns in a great performance as Charlie that makes me wish he had a better agent. I really would like to see this guy in something good just once. I mean I dug Drive Angry but that was only good because it was so intentionally bad. Lee Pace shows up here as Garrett, who was my favorite character from the book, and I feel like no one told him what sort of movie he was in. The man is enormously talented and acts his ass off here so much so that the other actors around him should be ashamed of themselves. I am not sure what turn led to Pace being in this movie and I suspect it was the number of zeros on the check but it is sad to see his talents so wasted. Every scene he is in is elevated and even in my grief for him that he is in it, I was glad to have him all the same.

Conclusion [4.0 out of 10]

Scorewise, this is quite a jump from the 1 gave to Part 1 but that is because things actually happen in this one. Sure, some of that was me retching at how melodramatic it is but there is action and plot movement and honestly watching Michael Sheen commit career suicide is fascinating. Obviously no self-respecting (is there such a thing?) Twilight fan is going to take anything I say seriously but for those of you out there who think maybe you can endure this for a date or are just curious about the series, understand that this movie may one day be used to extract valuable information out of suspected terrorists while they are being held without rights in offshore government prisons. There is nothing but pain here for the average viewer and it should be avoided at all cost. This also gets a full point bump in score for being the last one of these accursed pieces of shit.