Reviews
The Sunday Times
Cosmo Landesman
“This is cinema as pure swoon spectacle, where the man, as opposed to the woman, is the dumb object of beauty to be adored. Part one of the saga’s conclusion is a terrific soap opera. I can’t wait to see part two.
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20/11/2011
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The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
“[Condon] resurrects the awkward teenage yearning that enlivened the first “Twilight” movie, but also transforms that initial, crude hunger into something deeper. Mostly, he brings Bella toward her happily-ever-after by giving this movie over to her, her dreams and her desires, as in a cosmic montage sequence worthy of “The Tree of Life,” but, you know, shorter. Edward may finally change Bella, but it’s Mr. Condon who resurrects her. ”
17/11/2011
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The Scotsman
Mike McCahill
“In director Bill Condon’s skilled hands, this instalment proves more intimate, confining its action to kids in rooms wrestling with the consequences of their own crushes. Such unashamed emotionality – oft-dismissed as “girly stuff” – is actually what distinguishes the Twilights in a market otherwise cluttered with noisy boys’ toys.”
18/11/2011
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The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
“The main actors understand that their characters are pop-iconic artefacts, wired for sound and movement, so they need merely flick the bio-animatronic switches: their looks and charisma do the rest. It’s all a lot of fun. For some movies you don’t need intelligence, you just need faith, gullibility and a state of happy surrender. ”
17/11/2011
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Time Out
Anna Smith
“As a stand-alone movie it’s a mixed bag. But it progresses the story of beloved characters with a reverence for the source material that will doubtlessly please Twi-hards, ushering in a finale that promises to be darker still. ”
14/11/2011
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The Los Angeles Times
Betsy Sharkey
“Breaking Dawn kinda sucks, in the metaphoric rather than the vampiric sense. The film doesn't have nearly the bite — ferocious or delicious — that any self-respecting vampire movie really should. It's as if all the life has drained away.”
18/11/2011
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Total Film
Emma Dibdin
“As a so-called epic love story, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
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17/11/2011
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Time Magazine
Mary Pols
“Since the Twilight movies are the most remote tale of love, sex and reproduction ever put to film, the chances that Breaking Dawn—Part 2 will be anything worth sinking your teeth into are as slim as Bella Swan.”
17/11/2011
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The Observer
Philip French
“It raises more laughs at the back of the stalls than hairs on the back of the neck.
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20/11/2011
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Empire Magazine
Helen O'Hara
“The problems are insurmountable. The entire second act is like a particularly overwrought soap opera — an impression not helped by some of the worst incidental scoring you’ll hear outside porn.”
16/11/2011
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Screen
Brent Simon
“An emotionally fraught, dramatically leaden tale, the movie again proves the experiential sweet spot of the franchise — that of surging adolescent feeling trumping rational thought, and in this case lucid plotting.”
15/11/2011
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The Daily Telegraph
Robbie Collin
“This fourth and penultimate film, in which Edward and Bella marry and finally consummate their relationship, takes an Olympic-pole-vault-sized leap backwards ... a formless, gormless soap opera: it’s a humourless, incoherent bore that lives down to the very worst stereotypes associated with the franchise. ”
16/11/2011
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The Evening Standard
David Sexton
“It seems an awful lot of bother for a shag - which is really all that needs to be said of the entire Twilight series.”
18/11/2011
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
“The ongoing emo-operetta of this drama now sweeps us away on a new riptide of mawkish euphoria.”
15/11/2011
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The Daily Mail
Chris Tookey
“A rather good original idea has dwindled into self-parody.”
18/11/2011
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The Times
Kate Muir
“You gotta laugh, and we did, hysterically, at all the wrong moments ... The outtakes must be fantastic.”
15/11/2011
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