The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012)

Yes, I watched. Yes, I hate myself for watching.

Let me beam brief pride before I serve raging scorn: “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II” finally gives us something we have not seen yet seen in this supernatural romance franchise about a young woman torn between moody, control-freak vampire boyfriend (now husband) and moody, control-freak BFF werewolf: Bella (Kristen Stewart) at last forms a personality of her own and the initiative to take action on her own. Finally.

Disclaimer: Bella is dead. She is now a full vampire. So, never mind pride. Lady has a backbone, no pulse. She’s still at home, still controlled. She has to die to get freedom. 

Misogynist.

This last chapter of a two-part flick follows Bella and that vampire soul mate Edward (Robert Pattinson) as they protect their infant child Renesmee from evil vampire overlords who want the young girl dead, lest she turn monstrous. Renesemee is half-human, though, so not a danger, but not quite normal. Her age is a speed train, going to toddler in mere days, and grade schooler within months. She can fly. Read minds. (I guess she can join the “X-Men” movies?) 

Protecting the child from ritual murder is of such importance that Jacob’s werewolf family is willing to put aside its long regional war with Edward’s family and fight alongside them. 

Why? Love! 

But an intermission: See, this flick is still based on Morman conservative Stephanie Meyer’s novels, a woman whose overall view on females have vexed me for years. She writes submissive women, the kind who like to take abuse, and appreciate it, thrive off it. Men control. Women obey. No shades of gray. Meyer must hate being a woman.

In an earlier film, Edward visited Bella on the eve of their wedding, I guess to make sure she behaves, or because he loves her that much … who knows? Jacob once told Bell, “If I can’t have you, no one will.” Bella smiled. Romance, huh? Anti-woman. Meyer’s world.

(Myers’ “The Host” is worse, with a female hero who falls deeper in love with her man after he punches her in the face. Another beau prefers strangulation. Get the theme?) 

I bristled and stewed in those previous movies, but not to the point of turning off the film and walking away in disgust. I did here. I saw it coming, too. 

The scene: Twenty-something wolfman Jacob (Taylor Lautner) stands by Edward near movie’s end and -– referring to the 9-ish Renesmee, a child –- says, “Shall I start calling you dad?” The scene’s a joke. Get it? No? See the 20-year-old Jacob is in love with the little girl and wants to marry her. He wants her body. He thinks about it. Really.

It’s not his fault. It just happened! She imprinted on him, whatever the fuck that means. Actually it means the little girl came onto him, the No. 1 defense of every sick-ass child molester out there. Look it up. I covered crime and this shit as a reporter, and heard it in court. There is no mystery here. Meyer is into child sex and likely was abused. Often.

(My response to any defense that Jacob-Renesemee’s love is platonic/chivalric now and only will grow later into sensual love: No. Director Bill Condon calling the love brotherly-sisterly … does not help. Liar. Even Lautner apparently hated the material, so he says.) 

Sure Bella gets rightly angry when she first hears of this hook up, she goes after Jacob, but, hey, she’s eventually submissive again, them men tell her heel and she does, and this is Myers, and by the climax, Bella is ready to send off child daughter to live with the man of her destiny, her protector, in secret. A true Meyer woman. 

Hell with this. Hell with it. I hate this film. And every message of submission. Child sexual abuse. Prepping girl brides for marriage to older men. None of this is an accident.

As I write, I fume again, I’ll quit. So, yes, the clean camera work by cinematographer Guillermo Navarro stuns, the best work of the franchise, and near any film in 2012. I also had a riotous laugh fest with a long battle royale near the film’s end which is neither a battle, nor a royale, as good guys and bad guys literally rip off each other’s heads in some not-semi-serious fashion that recalls Monty Python at its daftest. It’s really awful. 

Fitting. Heads should roll for this ugly, offensive series of films. This is vile shit, upping child molesters, making controlling abusive men romantic. I cannot believe I watched. The most dmaging to women and children Hollywood franchise ever made, and every film a hit. Maybe it America goes all right-wing, Bible-thumper, it will be more popular. F

The Host (2013)

Leave it to “Twilight” writer Stephanie Meyer to create an aliens-take-over-the-world drama involving a vapid teen girl torn between two boys who –- I kid you not -– at different points choke and punch her. That’s “The Host.” Much like the creepy romance of “Twilight.” The story: All of humanity has been body-snatched by glowing alien crawfish that plunder one’s consciousness, rendering people thoughtless puppets. Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) -– our “heroine” -- is thus soul-sucked, but her urge to rejoin kin/fellow resistance fighters is so strong, she rebels inside her own head. This leads to Ronan endlessly and out loud debating her own voice-over, resulting in our alternating cringing and laughing. The girl(s) finds her tribe-like people, including two interchangeable guys who -– as I said -– thump her. Why? Melanie is now untrustworthy. The Meyer trick: Human Melanie and Crawfish Melanie are each in love with one of the guys. Neither ever considers, “Wow, these assholes hit women. I’m out.” Meyer. Director Andrew Niccol has done better future sci-fi with “Gattaca,” and Ronan rocked in “Atonement” and “Hanna.” Her irises glowing like “Tron” discs and reciting drivel, she evaporates here. The “months later” epilogue feels all too true. D-

Twilight (2008)

Based on a the first installment of a gazillion-selling book series about teens, love and blood-sucking vampires, the entertaining "Twilight" follows Bella (Kristen Stewart) as she moves to a tiny town in Washington to live with her police chief dad. At her new high school, Bella is met with the greeting that all newcomer students get -- either hyped-up overly sincere glad-handing or cruel scorn. yet, not.

One person grabs her attention -- the pale, brooding Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who sticks close to his adopted brothers and sisters, all pale, all strangely silent, all cultish-like. Later that first day, Bella walks into biology class and as she stands in front of a fan, her scent is blown toward Edward. He acts as if stricken by mustard gas. They are, of course, destined to fall in love.

Catherine Hardwicke, who made the stunning, intense "Thirteen," nails the insecurities and stuttering flirtation that make up much of teen life and love ... in the context of a film that has a teen girl falling in love with a century-old teen vampire with "Seventeen"-cover ready hair. (You either roll with it, or you don't.) Among the subplots is a war between Edward's fangy family, who won't kill humans, and another pack of vampires, who enjoy murder. One of the evil types sets his sights on Bella's blood, and Edward must safe her. Naturally. This drama ends in a unholy weak climax inside a ballet school full of mirrors. This lazy "Enter the Dragon" business hampers the film, but doesn't derail it.

Before long we're back on the romance, which could end blissfully, but surely won't. I can't speak of the adaption from the Stephanie Meyer novel, but the film is a nice mixture of Shakespearean theatrics and displays of love, and Anne Rice stripped clean of blood and sex, all for young teens who still believe in soap-opera-scribbling-on-a-notebook-cover teen love, and not adult love. I mean, the guy sparkles. No, I mean, he really sparkles. in daylight. Y'know, this ain't realism.

The two leads are game, and sell charisma by the bucket load. Hardwicke's roving, sweeping, swooning camera not only follows Bella and Edward's romance, it seems to be it. Floating and sweeping around forests. The surreal vampire baseball scene is a hoot, a stripped down version of Quidditch from that other best-selling cultural movement. All fawning aside though, this ain't "True Blood." Now that's true bloody entertainment. A brilliant slice of undead life. B