The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn is a bad movie.  All heated debate about the series itself aside, the movie just isn’t very good on fundamental levels.

To start, the acting is terrible.  As an example, Edward and the other vampires have this weird habit of gazing blankly.  Not to be confused with the warm gaze shared between lovers during a tender moment, this is the kind of gaze a pothead in 7-Eleven at three in the morning gives to the marshmallow rice crispy in the snack aisle.

Of the lead actors Robert Pattinson stands out as the worst this time around, which is surprising considering that in past movies from the series he was arguably the strongest. One of the comedic highlights of the entire movie comes in a scene when Edward (played by Pattinson for people late to the game) is trying to bring Bella (played by Kristin Stewart) back to consciousness and shouts “Come on!” in an inexplicably Bostonian accent.

Taylor Lautner (as Jacob) was nothing special, but at least that’s been consistently bad throughout the Twilight films.  One thing Lautner does seem to understand however is what being somber actually means.

During the tense moments of Bella’s pregnancy the majority of the cast suddenly loses the ability to do anything but frown and gaze whimsically.  During these scenes, Lautner stood out as one of the few actors that understood being somber doesn’t mean the sudden loss of all personality.

Stewart comes across as best of lead actors with regards to the overall quality for performance.  It’s hard to criticize her because many of the melodramatic responses she gives are part of the material as opposed to her own doing.

All things considered, Stewart just doesn’t seem to care about the role.  She performs her lines as required, but brings none of the extra flair she had in previous films like Adventureland.

Acting aside, the story of the film just isn’t interesting.  The only significant story element that occurs is Bella’s pregnancy, which only becomes pivotal in the second half of the movie.  There’s also mention of the fact that Edward has killed bad people in the past but this quickly gets forgotten, which makes one wonder why bother bringing it up at all.

Despite not being a great movie there are people who will enjoy The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, the fans.  If someone enjoyed the other movies they will probably enjoy this one.  However, anyone who is not a fan would do well to stay far away because there is nothing substantial to be found here.