Well … better late than never

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Twilight hater finds himself enjoying the fifth and final film in franchise

The final installment of the Twilight series has arrived and, much to this reviewer’s humility and befuddlement, it wasn’t awful.

It was, without a doubt, the best in the series for the franchise, but it wasn’t great either.

It’s some kind of miracle, particularly because the previous four films stumbled as the cheesy love triangle between human, vampire and werewolf was brought to life.

The film opens immediately after the squishy end of last years “Breaking Dawn: Part 1” with Bella torn open, resembling Karen Carpenter if she was the elephant man only to emerge crimson eyed and sparkly.

The film lulls only for a moment and then finds its plot with the “villainous”

Volturi aiming to execute Edward and Bella’s newborn daughter along with anyone in league with them for supposedly breaking vampire rule.

This paper has seen my thoughts on the Twilight series before and it was of the astoundingly negative. The book series stands as the literary equivalent of “Plan 9

From Outer Space,” with terrible writing, even worse characterizations and an overall lack of drama and drive.

What sets this film apart from its predecessors and towards the realm towards decency are:

– It has a sense of humor and seems fully willing to poke fun at its own absurdity

– It has a thematic drive with a sense of threat and urgency giving the film a pulse.

– It’s two leads actually having chemistry, with flirtation and playfulness.

– The character of Garrett being interesting and feels most like the Anne Rice vampires miss Meyer so wants hers to appear as.

– Michael Sheen and his wonderful brand of hammy, over the top acting as baddie leader Aro. He made the film so much more light and self aware.

– Despite a cop out conclusion, the ending action scene is actually pretty exciting seeming more at home in an X-Men flick with satisfyingly brutal violence.

Despite these praisings,The film still suffers from the limitations of its source subjecting its audience to a lot of stiff emotionless acting, unbelievable character interactions, and meandering narrative, but for once there’s actually something worth seeing.

It took five movies to make one half way decent flick.

This movie earns three out of five stars.