The Quileute and the Volturi close in on expecting parents Edward and Bella, whose unborn child poses different threats to the wolf pack and vampire coven.
A formless, gormless soap opera: it’s a humourless, incoherent bore that lives down to the very worst stereotypes associated with the franchise.
Twi-hards will lap it up but even they might quietly admit that key elements have been distilled to disappointing effect.
Breaking down, more like it.
The acting’s better than it’s ever been, but with the best will in the world, this can’t get past the fact that the story’s demented.
Breaking Waters, more like, given the big event in this first part of the Twilight saga's conclusion.
Let’s hope they can wrap everything up with a better film than this one.
That appalled fascination with sex remains a sticking point, cuing a final, surprisingly intense eruption of gyno-horror. Yet in director Bill Condon’s skilled hands, this instalment proves more intimate, confining its action to kids in rooms wrestling with the consequences of their own crushes.
It’s easily the most uneven of the saga, containing some of its daftest moments and some of its best.
Darker, sexier, sharper – a neat next step.
It raises more laughs at the back of the stalls than hairs on the back of the neck.
While Condon is as uneasy with his few action scenes as his predecessors and has equally little idea of what to do with those tiresome werewolves, he plays the core story with confidence and some delightful shafts of humour.
Flat performances, dodgy plotting and rubbish talking wolves aside, this is a weirdly grim addition to the supposedly tween-friendly franchise, less fairy tale than misjudged horror show.
Twilight Breaking Dawn sparks 'convulsing, snorting' seizures in US cinemas
General release. Check local listings for show times.