Reason Writers at the Movies: Peter Suderman Reviews Twilight: Breaking Dawn—Part 2

Senior Editor Peter Suderman reviews the final entry in the series that made teen paranormal romance a genre unto itself, Twilight: Breaking Dawn—Part 2:

I couldn't count how many characters had their heads ripped, kicked, punched, chopped or eaten off in "Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2," but the sheer volume of gleefully horrific decapitations in the movie must be meant to signal something: Everyone involved with this film – from the dutiful filmmakers to the rabid fans to Stephenie Meyer, the author of the immensely successful young-adult books on which the movie is based – clearly has lost their minds.

The fifth film in the series, adapted from the second half of Ms. Meyer's fourth and final book, is spectacularly, stupefyingly bizarre, like some gooey, saccharine hybrid of David Cronenberg's eruptive bodily horror and Nicholas Sparks' glazed-over festivals of adolescent infatuation.

As the final entry in the series gets going, the story's central love triangle has taken a turn for the weird. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), the series' pouty hero, has chosen between her two supernatural suitors, and the rich, boring, immortal guy won.

Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), her chic and ultrapowerful vampire lover, has beaten Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), a rugged young werewolf. Bella and Edward have finally married, and after an awkwardly violent, bed-destroying honeymoon romp, have had a child together – the half-human, half-vampire superchild Renesmee.

Complicating things further is that Jacob has "imprinted" on Renesmee. Which means, well – it's not entirely clear. Jacob cryptically explains that "it's a wolf thing." Whatever kind of thing it is, it's apparently not normal for it to happen between an adult male wolf and a newborn baby.

It's hard to describe how creepy this is – not in a haunted house sense, so much as a "Come here, little girl," leered the old man in the trench coat kind of way.

Read the whole review in The Washington Times.