'AltFilmGuide' Talks About What The Critics Will Say About 'Breaking Dawn Part 1'

From source: AltFilmGuide
That many critics would turn their noses at The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 should come as no surprise. Stephenie Meyer's novels have been the target of ridicule, and so have the three movies based on them: Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight, Chris Weitz's The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and David Slade's The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, all featuring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner. Of the three, Eclipse is the one that managed to get the most positive — or at least most lukewarm — notices, partly thanks to several well-staged battle sequences and better-than-usual special effects.

Rotten Tomatoes' approval ratings for the Twilight Saga movies are as follows: Twilight, 49% overall, 53% top critics; New Moon, 27% overall; 42% top critics; Eclipse, 49% overall, 65% top critics. The most curious thing about those percentages is that — and this is something quite unusual — RT's "top critics," or those from well-established online and print publications, have a consistently greater appreciation for the Twilight Saga movies than your average RT critic.
Now, despite those less than stellar figures, some were surely hoping that Bill Condon — he of Gods and Monsters, Kinsey, and Dreamgirls — would lift the Twilight Saga movies to a higher cinematic realm. Ian McKellen, Lynn Redgrave, Laura Linney, and Jennifer Hudson were all nominated for Academy Awards; Hudson, in fact, was 2006's Best Supporting Actress winner. Unfortunately, those with high expectations will be sorely disappointed if early reviews are any indication of what's to come.

Not that Twilight fans shall be deterred. Breaking Dawn will definitely be a major box-office hit, perhaps 2011's second biggest blockbuster, behind only Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The problem is that the next-to-last installment in the Twilight Saga may end up playing mostly to the series' fan base. In other words, Breaking Dawn Part 1 should open with huge numbers only to plummet a week or so later, much like Twilight and New Moon — and to a lesser extent Eclipse (which opened on a Wednesday) — before it. In the follow-up post are snippets from three early reviews, all from major trade publications.