The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is the saga's most crowd-pleasing conclusion and its most audacious entry, a film that delivers the franchise's most spectacular action sequence and its most surprising moment in a finale that gives the saga a send-off of considerably more dramatic force than the source novel's more sedate conclusion had suggested was possible. Bill Condon's 2012 film is the saga's most purely entertaining entry, and its central twist is the franchise's most effective piece of dramatic invention, a moment of such complete and well-executed surprise that it gives the saga's conclusion a dramatic energy that the more conventionally staged source material could not have achieved. It is a film that earns its crowd-pleasing register through craft rather than mere spectacle, and that gives the franchise's accumulated emotional investment a conclusion of genuine satisfaction.
At a Glance
Director: Bill Condon
Runtime: 115 minutes
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Michael Sheen, Lee Pace
Release: 2012
Critics Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, a crowd-pleasing conclusion with a genuinely audacious twist)
Audience Rating: ★★★★ (4/5 stars, the saga's most satisfying conclusion)
Review Breakdown
Plot
Bella, now a vampire of extraordinary power, adjusts to her new existence while she and Edward raise their rapidly developing daughter Renesmee. When the Volturi, misled into believing Renesmee is an immortal child, march on the Cullen family, vampires from around the world gather as witnesses to Renesmee's true nature. The central dramatic achievement is the handling of the confrontation's resolution, developed with an audacity that the source novel's more straightforward conclusion did not attempt, and whose central twist is the franchise's most effective piece of dramatic invention. The gathering of vampires from around the world gives the saga's mythology a global dimension the previous entries had not developed, and the treatment of this gathering as a community of mutual support gives the franchise's conclusion a warmth and a generosity the more narrowly focused previous entries had not always achieved. The screenplay's most effective structural decision is its use of the witness-gathering as a genuine dramatic process, giving the film's middle section a momentum and a purpose that the more episodic previous entries had not always maintained.
Characters
Stewart's Bella is given the saga's most dramatically satisfying transformation, her emergence as a vampire of extraordinary power giving the character a confidence and a physical authority the previous entries had not possessed. The contrast between the more uncertain Bella of the earlier films and the assured, capable figure she becomes here is the saga's most complete character arc, and Stewart plays the transition with a conviction and a physical ease that makes the transformation feel entirely earned. Pattinson's Edward is given the saga's most emotionally complete arc, his relationship with Bella and Renesmee giving the character a domestic warmth and paternal tenderness the more romantically focused previous entries had not fully developed. Sheen's Aro is given the saga's most dramatically significant villain arc, his decision to march on the Cullens and his eventual retreat giving the character a complexity and a menace the previous entries had not fully explored. Sheen plays Aro's theatrical menace and his eventual humiliation with a precision and a comic timing that makes the character the saga's most purely enjoyable performance. Lee Pace's Caius and the assembled vampire witnesses give the confrontation sequences a scale and a visual variety that the more domestically focused previous entries had not attempted.
Tone
Condon pitches the film at a register of escalating tension that gives the Volturi confrontation stakes and momentum. The most effective tonal achievement is the handling of the central twist, which shifts the confrontation's register from the solemn to the genuinely shocking with a speed and a precision that gives the sequence a dramatic force entirely disproportionate to its duration. The saga's conclusion, returning to the meadow of the original film, gives the franchise a send-off of appropriate emotional warmth, connecting the ending to the beginning with a visual and emotional coherence that the more episodic previous entries had not always maintained. The final montage, in which Bella shares her memories with Edward, is the saga's most purely romantic closing passage, a conclusion of warmth and sincerity that gives the franchise's central relationship the farewell it deserves.
Meaning / Themes
The central concern is the relationship between family and community. The gathering of vampires from around the world to stand as witnesses for the Cullen family gives the saga's mythology a global dimension the previous entries had not developed, and the treatment of this gathering as a community of mutual support gives the franchise's conclusion a warmth and a generosity the more narrowly focused previous entries had not always achieved. Bella's emergence as a vampire of extraordinary power gives the saga's central character arc its most dramatically satisfying resolution, transforming the more passive romantic heroine of the original into a figure of agency and strength whose protection of her family gives the franchise's central values their clearest expression.
Direction
Condon's direction is the saga's most assured, maintaining the escalating tension with a coherence and a momentum that the material's dramatic range requires. His handling of the central twist is the most important directorial achievement, staging the revelation with a precision and a dramatic force that give it an impact entirely disproportionate to its duration. The action sequences are the saga's most physically ambitious, staged with a clarity and a scale that the more atmospherically focused previous entries had not attempted. Carter Burwell returns to score the film, connecting it to the original's atmospheric register while developing it with a grandeur appropriate to the franchise's culmination.
Cultural Reception
Breaking Dawn Part 2 received mixed to positive reviews on its release and was a major commercial success, grossing over $829 million worldwide to become the saga's highest-grossing entry. Critics praised the central twist and Stewart's performance while noting the structural debt to its predecessor. It is now regarded as the saga's most purely entertaining conclusion, a film whose central twist is consistently cited as one of the most effective pieces of dramatic invention in the franchise's history, and whose reputation has improved as the saga's cultural reassessment has gathered pace.
Who Should Watch
Saga followers who have invested in the franchise's accumulated dramatic promise and want to see it delivered with force and crowd-pleasing satisfaction. Breaking Dawn Part 2 is the saga's most purely entertaining entry and its most audacious conclusion, and those who have followed the franchise to this point will find it the most dramatically satisfying entry since Eclipse. Those approaching the saga for the first time should begin with the original and allow the accumulated emotional investment to do its work.
Final Verdict: The saga's most crowd-pleasing conclusion and its most audacious entry. Stewart's Bella is given the saga's most dramatically satisfying transformation, Sheen's Aro is the franchise's most purely enjoyable performance, and the central twist is the most effective piece of dramatic invention the saga produced. It is the franchise at its most purely entertaining and its most dramatically surprising, a conclusion that gives five films of accumulated emotional investment the send-off they deserve.
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