Will you be seeing Breaking Dawn? Here's my review...

Hey everyone!

It's been a little over a week since Breaking Dawn Part 1 of the Twilight Saga hit theaters and in that time, I've observed many shared declarations from people and friends saying they will be sitting this one out.  Based on online reviews from popular and respectable sites aimed to warn parents and the public in general about the content of Breaking Dawn and other current films, most of these declarations seem to be based on a pretty consistent line of reviews stating this movie is not for young audiences.  Some even go as far to say Breaking Dawn should have received an R rating from the MPAA.

I saw Breaking Dawn last night.  It was a decently filled auditorium, just to give you a setting.  There were a large number of groups, consisting of young and middle aged women.  I saw a few girls that I assume could have been 12.  Some couples.

The groups of young and middle aged women were the ones that annoyed me every once in a while.  Giggling in all of "those" scenes, or cheering when Jacob would take off his shirt to expose his bazillion ab muscles.  That stuff just gets on my nerves, haha. I mean really, shut up and let me watch my movie.  Next, a group of young couples that all came together sat right next to me.  I was distracted, yet amused occasionally by the wife who would frequently lean over and explain things to her husband, who sat directly to my right.  He actually seem genuinely interested to understand the plot.

Besides all that distracting chatter going on at random during the film, I still feel I got my money's worth, enough to write a review for you.

I will be reviewing this movie the best I possibly can.  I might even be making some detailed descriptions, though nothing explicit but those of you who know me well enough might be surprised by how I write this, to help you get a better idea of the content, and help you make a more informed decision if you wish to see this movie, since so many people are on the fence.  SPOILERS!  If you have not read the books or don't want to know the details of how they brought certain elements of the story to life, stop reading.  Have a good day.

Now, let's review just what the MPAA does and what the decided and proposed ratings (for this particular movie) mean. 

The MPAA is an independent board of parents with no past affiliation to the movie business. Their job is to rate each film as they believe a majority of American parents would rate it, considering relevant themes and content.

Breaking Dawn is rated PG-13 for a few obvious reasons to those of us who read the books.  We're all expecting that there is going to be few scenes of sensuality, and we all know why.  Two people (virgins) just get married and now anything goes.  Did you know that brief nudity by itself does not require a PG-13 rating?  That can be PG.  A PG-13 rating is typically only applied when brief nudity is sexually oriented. 

So, does Breaking Dawn have this?  I guess we have to break down what nudity is, and if it was brief here.  If you consider nudity the "display of any private areas of the human body", then no, I would say that no where in the film do you even briefly glimpse "anything."  The scene where Bella and Edward go for a swim in the ocean on their wedding night, they're making out in the water (more of their bad acting - why can't those two ever get a good looking kiss?!), they are bare from the waist up.  Edwards arms are covering up any chance of seeing Bella's topless-ness.  You can see her bare back and side, as well as his.  I guess a bare back (bra-less) might be considered nudity on a woman.  This scene maybe lasts 5-10 seconds.  Count that.  Decide if that's brief enough to you.

The scene then changes to them in bed.  The camera is zoomed - more kissing, and you only see them from the shoulders up, like what's in the trailer.  Nothing weird in my opinion.  You see some of what I'll call "intimate facial expressions" for a second or two, and very little of implied bodily movements, but nothing more.  The camera angle changes to show you (again, just like in the trailer), Edwards back, and he's holding onto the headboard of the bed.  Yes, he breaks it, juuuuust like in the trailer.  Later on, we get a full view of a practically destroyed bed, but this isn't in a sexually oriented setting.

Some people can understandably find that implication a little too arousing for their standards.  But in this situation, I think having read the book helps keep this whole scene in check and within what I personally think is an appropriate depiction of Bella and Edward's predicament.  Him breaking the headboard isn't supposed to be a sexually explicit implication.  He's trying not to kill her.  That's the point.  Weird concept that anyone would die during sex I know, but that's the fact nonetheless.  Didn't seem all that rated R-ish to me. 

When it comes to movie ratings, the discussion or reference of intimate topics isn't exactly laid out in the rating criteria.  But the subject of intimacy is brought up a couple times in conversation.  When Jake comes to visit Bella at the wedding reception, his explanation for coming to the party is that he wanted to see her one last time before she becomes a vampire (since the whole deal was for her and Edward to get married, and Edward would change her into a vampire himself).  She tells him that she won't be changed right away, because she still wants to have an enjoyable honeymoon rather than be writhing in pain (from vampire venom).  Jacob catches the drift that this can only mean Bella and Edward will most likely be having some intimate moments together while she's still a very fragile human.  So, he gets angry.  Edward arrives back to the scene (since he left them alone to talk) and Jacob yells at Edward, I think he yells, "You'll kill her!" Obviously, we can guess that the "killing" he's referencing to would be because sex with a vampire is apparently dangerous business.

Bella and Edward, after having spent their wedding night together, doing activities every newlywed couple does, talk the next morning about how it was the best night of their lives.  Edward is very skeptical that he hasn't hurt Bella, even though she says she's perfectly fine, and decides to play the abstinence card on her for the rest of the honeymoon.  She eventually sorta begs him, which could definitely be interpreted as weird, but the whole setting had more of an "I need this emotionally" more than "I want you physically" ring to it.  I don't recall seeing much sensuality from that moment on throughout the rest of the film.

Overall, I didn't feel uncomfortable watching this.  Would I go see it with my parents or my in-laws?  Ya know, we're all adults.  It wouldn't bother me.  But they, I'm sure, have their own views of seeing the movie, so they probably wouldn't bother going anyway.  Just say "Twilight" and I'm sure you'd lose their interest.  Would I take my 13 year old daughter to see it?  (I don't have a 13 year old daughter, but you know what I mean)?.  I'm mixed on that.  One, I don't think hormone driven, immature, giggle crazy adolescents need to see stuff like this because it just messes with their heads about the reality of intimacy.  On the other hand, Bella and Edward tell each other what an incredibly experience it was, and as I saw it, it was a happy, relationship building moment for them.  It wasn't all about the physical aspect of it.  The movie hinted a little bit at the important emotional side of intimacy that every relationship ought to have.  Not many movies, or at least not one I've EVER seen, has portrayed something special like that?

Now, I'm not saying the whole sex scene was needed; no movie really ever NEEDS that stuff.  But, since we all knew it was going to be in this movie in some way, shape, or form, I thought it was actually done rather tastefully and may have actually provided an encouraging (though infinitesimal) message about how special waiting for marriage and physical intimacy can be.

That's not to say I'm now going to go watch every movie ever made just because "I can handle it."  No.  I'm saying I think all the reviews about the sex content in Breaking Dawn were a bit of an overreaction.  If you go to the movies to see sex anyway, then it's time to grow up.  That is all. 

Now that that whole explanation is out of the way, another thing a lot of people had a beef with was Jacob's unnecessary use of the F word.  My view of this?  The F word is a horrible sounding grunt of foul air.  But if I hadn't already read reviews of the movie before seeing it, I would never have known it was even in the movie at all.  I cannot remember hearing that word even in the slightest.  I'd have to go read the online reviews again just to know where it was.

Blood, gore, and disturbing images.

As Bella's pregnancy progresses, she looks thinner and thinner.  She gets so thin, your mind will automatically compare her to a holocaust victim.  A pregnant, third-trimester, holocaust victim.  Yes, rather disturbing.  She's very sick looking, because she is.  For anyone who is concerned that the movie industry made Kristen Stewart lose a sickly amount of weight for this role, rest easy.  It was all digitally altered, but you'd never know that.  It looked INCREDIBLY real.

Blood.  There is more blood in this film than the previous three.  Obviously if you've read the book you know that the baby Bella is carrying wants nourishment in the form of human blood, and that's why Bella is so sickly - it's been feeding on her.  So, Bella drinks blood...from a white non-see through foam cup and a clear straw.  The most blood you ever seen all at once in this movie is when this cup gets dropped once and spills.  Even the birth scene doesn't have THAT much blood.

But yeah, the birth scene.  Yes disturbing.  Bella's back breaks in half and you see her crumble to the ground in what appears to be astonishing pain.  When on a sort of "operating table" Rosalie is about to take a scalpel to Bella's stomach to get the baby out.  You never see the blade touch the skin, never see skin cut open but you do see a bloody hand holding a scalpel.    You see, in a blurry chaos of quick images for dramatic effect, Edward bites into Bella's stomach to help get the baby out (remember the uterus has become too hard for anything to penetrate, but of course vampire teeth can cut through anything).  He gets blood on his face.  When the baby is born, it's covered in a thin layer of blood, no chunkage.

Bella appears to die, and you see an overall view of her body (covered, though slightly bloody) and it looks sickly thin and well, dead.    Edward stabs her in the heart with a very large syringe.

That about sums up any kind of "questionable" content I can think of.

I thought the movie was great.  Excellent actually.  Compared to the other three, this one had a far more intriguing flow of events, far more emotion and in all the right ways to make you connect with the characters, and just better acting all around.  I think boycotting this movie is a bit silly, haha, but that's the whole reason I wrote this review.  

I'm not trying to make excuses for the movie or claim it's completely okay.  I do think it takes a bit of maturity to watch.  By that definition, maybe it does qualify as rated R, but I'd say that that's a bit of a stretch.  I'm also not defending the movie.  Most movies these days have unnecessary content.  I thought it was very well done and if you want to go see it, you should be able to do so without judgement from others.  I know SOO many people who are in love with movies far worse than this one (The Notebook anyone? Seems to be one of those movies almost every girl I know loves.  I hate it.).

The rest of the film was fantastic.  The wedding was beautiful, the vampire/wolf feud was excellently done, and even though a lot of people in the theater were laughing, I thought the part where Jacob imprints was also done well.  If you read and actually LIKED the books, I think you'll be pleased with it.

Hope this helped!