Film review: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2

There will be floods of tears this weekend. Some triggered by inconsolable distress, others brought on by blessed relief. For this is the end of a cinematic era, as the Twilight movie series explodes into a tumultuous climax.

For the Twi-hards (that's what the devoted followers are called), it's a bitter-sweet moment; the eagerly awaited conclusion of a vampire-werewolf love triangle which has captivated legions of hormonally imbalanced viewers, but at the same time, a vivid reminder that this is the end of the road.

For the rest of us, however, it marks the merciful end of a series which has been high on pale-faced hormonal posturing, but woefully low on cinematic substance . . . talcum powder sales will never be the same in Hollywood again.

The Twilight producers have followed Harry Potter's lead by splitting Stephenie Meyer's final book into two films. And so, almost a year to the day after Breaking Dawn Part One, comes this grand finale.

Having given birth to a daughter at the end of the last film and nearly died, Part Two begins with previously human Bella (Stewart) re-awakening as a vampire.

Opening scenes visualise her heightened senses: the sound of a spider spinning its web, the music of a passing breeze, a trickle of a bead of water down a glass.

She sees and hears everything, contentedly falling back into the arms of her vampire lover Edward (Pattinson).

The third man in the Twilight love triangle, best friend and part-time werewolf Jacob (Lautner), soon arrives on the scene and is taken aback by Bella's rejuvenation.

He declares himself an official protector of Bella's half-mortal, half-vampire offspring Renesmee (Foy), and the parents settle into domestic bliss with their pals, and the rest of the Cullen clan.

But trouble is stirred when Edward's cousin Irina (Grace) mistakenly identifies Renesmee as an immortal child – an abomination under ancient vampire law.

She reports her fears to the Volturi, the vampire council led by Aro (Sheen) and they marshal an army including sibling guards Jane (Fanning) and Alec (Bright) and enforcers Demetri (Bewley) and Felix (Cudmore). This concluding chapter of the outlandish fang-tasy series delivers a master class in constructing CGI mountains out of molehills. The Twilight Saga: Treading Water would be more apt, considering how scriptwriter Melissa Rosenberg manages to expand barely 30 minutes of plot into two hours of anticipation and dread.

The climactic battle royale between the Volturi and the Cullens is certainly spectacular, though. Airborne vampires and snarling werewolves tumble acrobatically across the screen, locked in mortal combat, their desperate struggles ended with a sickening snap of a neck or crude decapitation.

Had these brave warriors not been otherworldly fantasy creatures which never bleed, the relentless carnage – to the backdrop on an angst-heavy soundtrack featuring the likes of Green Day, Ellie Goulding, Christina Perri and Feist – would surely have merited a 15 certificate.

For the cast, this latest movie feels like a family bereavement. Kristen Stewart was just 17 when she was first cast as Bella Swan in 2007. Back then, no one knew what a global phenomenon the movies would be.

"We didn't even know a sequel was possible. It genuinely wasn't the goal," she says. "Twilight definitely had a following thanks to the novels but I think we all kind of imagined it was fairly cult-ish. Then it suddenly took off like wildfire."

Although constantly chased by paparazzi and hounded by the films' fans, Stewart says she's never regretted signing up. "There have been some heavy moments obviously but I would trade nothing. It's such a strange job; you need to be a little crazy, you need to be a little obsessive.

"But how often do people find what really genuinely challenges them in life at this age? I get so much more time to do what I love than most people. I mean I started when I was 10 years old so I definitely wouldn't trade anything."

Stewart's co-star, Brit Robert Pattinson, is now one of the biggest heart-throbs in the world thanks to his portrayal of the beautiful vampire Edward Cullen. But the actor behind the fanged poster boy has remained as self-deprecating as he was at the start of the journey.

"I was trying so hard on the first one," he recalls. "I'd never done an American movie before, I'd barely done anything before, and I kind of wanted to take it so seriously and was so determined to prove myself. Occasionally my face went totally out of control."

Despite a role as the doomed star pupil Cedric Diggory in the fourth Harry Potter movie, Pattinson didn't think he stood a chance of being cast as Edward.

"Someone had sent me the book and I'd read it and I was like, 'I'm never going to get this part, there's no point in me doing an audition tape from London'." So he didn't. But then a while later he made his way to LA for a different role and says he "went in for the Twilight audition for the hell of it, basically". And the media furore that accompanies the role? "It's impossible to regret anything because it's totally random how things work out," he says.

The shy star's even in two minds about the adulation dying down once the franchise ends.

"You don't want people to stop seeing your movies. You learn to live with whatever circumstances you're given basically. Nothing's that bad, though there are things that are annoying."

Asked what he thinks he'd be doing if he'd never gone to that audition, Pattinson says: "I don't know. If I'd continued living the way I was living in London before I got this I'd probably weigh 350 pounds and be a drug addict!"

Sadly, aside from the impressive final showdown, Breaking Dawn – Part 2 feels like the dying breaths not of a family of movie-making pals, but of a Hollywood cash cow being milked ruthlessly dry.

Stewart and Pattinson stare dreamily into each other's eyes and make gushing declarations, but there are only so many slow-motion smooches an audience can stand, before starting to nervously look at their watches.

But none of this really matters. Twilight is a franchise which is critic-proof. Fans will sink their teeth into it with gusto, and find their appetites richly slaked, like vampires at a cliché-ridden blood bank.