The Twilight Saga: The Breaking Dawn Part 1 Critical reception

The Breaking Dawn – Part 1 received generally negative reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 25% of critics (of the 207 counted reviews) gave the film a positive review with an average rating of 4.35/10, and the site’s consensus reads, “Slow, joyless, and loaded with unintentionally humorous moments, Breaking Dawn Part 1 may satisfy the Twilight faithful, but it’s strictly for fans of the franchise.”

The review site Metacritic gave the film a 45 out of 100, based on reviews from 36 critics.

It is the lowest-rated installment in the franchise, which was previously New Moon. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a “B+” grade, the audience was 80% female and 60% over 21 years old. Among females only the film received an improved “A-” grade.

Justin Chang of Variety gave the film a negative review, calling the film “disappointing”. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter also gave the film a negative review, calling Part 1 “bloated”. Brent Simon of Screen International called the film “soapy and melodramatic”. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film one star out of a possible five, and referred to it as the next stage of an “emo-operetta” that “sweeps us away on a new riptide of mawkish euphoria”.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two-and-a-half stars, saying that it is filled with a lot of unanswered questions, but calling Stewart’s portrayal of Bella “pretty good”. The television show Film 2011‘s Claudia Winkleman gave the film a negative review, calling it “hilarious”. Writing for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers said Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is “the worst Twilight movie yet” and thought Taylor Lautner looked like a “petulant five-year-old”.

Mary Pols of Time magazine named it one of the Top 10 Worst Movies of 2011, saying “this entry, which held within it the teasing promise of explosive consummation, instead delivered soap-opera-level dry humping in high-thread-count sheets”, and concluded, “This was the bloodiest of the Twilight movies but somehow the most bloodless.”

Conversely, Gabriel Chong of “Movie Exclusive” gave the film four stars out of a possible five, praising the dialogue, wedding and action scenes, and particularly Condon’s direction, stating, “In the hands of a lesser director, the turn of events could very well descend into farce—thankfully then, this movie has found a masterful helmsman in Condon.”

He went on to praise Stewart’s performance, calling it “mesmerising” and saying that she “makes [Bella’s] every emotion keenly felt that runs the gamut from joy, trepidation, anxiety, distress and above all quiet and resolute determination.”

Mark Adams of Daily Mirror also gave the film four stars out of five and said, “The Twilight films manage to cleverly blend melodrama with supernatural thrills, and while the film is not without its silly moments and cringeworthy dialogue it does deliver the drama and emotional highs we have come to expect”.

He also praised the wedding, describing it as “beautifully staged”, and Stewart’s performance. Other positive reviewers from The New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer said the dialogue was improving and the whole movie played out with style, while being faithful to the book and servicing hardcore fans.

MSN Entertainment critic Alaina O’Connor gave Condon some praise for bringing “a certain visual elegance that helps with some of the more-absurd elements of the story.” O’Connor also felt that the film did a good job of “examining the relationship between Edward and Bella”, but felt that the narrative was weak otherwise.

The film was also ranked the tenth best film of 2011 by E!. Will Brooker, writing for Times Higher Education, makes the case that Breaking Dawn has a feminist element, stating that it “reverse(s) the embedded cinematic conventions of male voyeur and female-as-spectacle”, and that “the lack of attention to (Bella) as sex object is remarkable.”

The film also drew both criticism and praise for having what was seen as a pro-life theme. Natalie Wilson, writing for the Ms. magazine blog, described what she saw as the book’s “latent anti-abortion message” as “problematic from a feminist perspective” and found this element “heightened, not diminished, in the film”, citing scenes in which Rosalie scolds Alice for using the word “fetus”.

Richard Lawson of The Atlantic said that Bella’s pregnancy “serves as the narrative dais from which Meyer, and in complicity Condon and the screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, delivers a startlingly direct and uncovered anti-abortion sermon”, adding “it seems there was no escaping the firmly anti-choice themes of this leg of the story, and so we must sit and grumble while sickly Bella is scored by plaintive strings as she chooses the one true moral path”

Neil Morris of Independent Weekly said that the film “takes up a radically pro-life mantle when Bella refuses to abort her baby, even though her life may depend on it”. Sandie Angulo Chen of Moviefone described the “bulk” of the film as “one long pro-life debate”, in which “Bella says it’s her body, her choice (terms usually used in the pro-choice movement), but her decision is pro-life to the extreme, because the baby can and will kill her”.

In contrast, John Mulderig of the Catholic News Service praised the “strongly pro-life message being conveyed via Bella’s unusual plight”, saying it “presents a welcome counterpoint to the all-too-frequent motif in popular entertainment whereby pregnancy is presented as a form of disease or an almost unbearable curse”.

In an interview with Screen Rant, screenwriter Rosenberg addressed the perception of an anti-abortion message in the film, stating, “If I could not find my way into it that didn’t violate my beliefs (because I am extremely pro-choice very outspoken about it, very much a feminist) I would not have written this move [sic]. They could have offered me the bank and I still wouldn’t have. In order to embrace it I had to find a way to deal with it. I also had no interest in violating Stephenie’s belief system or anyone on the other side”.

On February 25, Breaking Dawn – Part 1 was nominated for eight Razzie Awards, including: Worst Picture; Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel; Worst Screen Ensemble; Worst Director (for Bill Condon); Worst Screenplay; Worst Actor (for Taylor Lautner), and Worst Actress (for Kristen Stewart). The Worst Screen Couple award for Kristen Stewart with either Taylor Lautner or Robert Pattinson was also included. The film lost all categories to Jack and Jill.

The Twilight Saga: The Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011) Accolades

The Twilight Saga: The Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011) pictures.