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All right, Twihards. After four books and five movies we have finally reached common ground. I still don't quite "get" what tickles your fancy (and other parts) so about this odiously tedious and regressive vampire romance story, I still think the characters are wooden at best and essentially nonexistent the rest of the time, and all that pale-face vamp makeup still makes me chuckle whenever I see it. But, I must say, the final film in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn Part 2, is a shockingly enjoyable movie that, if not exactly salvaging the rest of the dreary franchise, sends the Twilight universe off onto its ice floe on a good, silly, upbeat note. Yes, I was thoroughly entertained by Bill Condon's second outing in the Twilight director's chair; mostly, I suspect, because everyone finally, finally loosened up and decided to have some damn fun.
For the people who have just emerged from a decade spent in a cave and are now blinking in bewilderment as they take in this new and terrible world, Twilight is a series of romance of books turned blockbuster film franchise about Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), a dowdy mortal girl, and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), the literally shimmering vampire hunk she falls in love with after moving to rainy Forks, Washington. But that was many moons, or at least one New Moon, ago and now, at the conclusion of our tale, Bella has been made vampyr. Not because darling Edward couldn't resist himself, but because on their wedding night they conceived what they thought impossible: a vampire/human hybrid baby that killed its mother during birth. Thus the only way to get beloved Bella back was to make her an immortal blood fiend. At the start of BD P2 Bella is first experiencing the joys of her new vampirism — heightened senses, glowing alabaster skin, fiery red eyes — and gets to meet her daughter. It's mostly a happy occasion, except when Bella learns that her onetime suitor Jacob (Taylor Lautner), a teen werewolf, has "imprinted" on baby Renesmee. Meaning, he's hers for life and, uh, sorta the other way around. If that sounds creepy, it is. There's no sexual tension between wolf and baby at the moment, but the idea is that later, when she's all grown up, well, yeah, there will be. So Bella's angry about that, but she gets over it as quickly as any other plot is discarded in this scattershot series, and then it's on to some fun stuff.