The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2: Critic Reviews

It made me realize that, as narratively lumpy as they can be, I like the Twilight films because they're really about the eternal movie romance of vampires at play.

Despite the slow start Mr. Condon closes the series in fine, smooth style. He gives fans all the lovely flowers, conditioned hair and lightly erotic, dreamy kisses they deserve.

Despite all those fierce confrontations and tribal divisions, exhaustively rehearsed and mythologised, nobody's really a bad guy and nothing's really at stake.

Fans of the series, which has made more than $2 billion worldwide, will no doubt find it all terribly romantic and deeply meaningful. The rest of humanity will remain unmoved.

As for you, dear reader, the symptoms of our long national nightmare should begin to fade as you're heading out of the theater, dissipating by the time you clear the concession stand.

This fifth and mercifully final installment features so much idle anticipation that it's unclear whether we're watching a movie or an Apple product launch.

It's about as exciting as watching David Blaine play Stratego and makes you miss the power of the first four films all the more: the uncontainable yearning of the Bella-Edward-Jacob triangle.

"Breaking Dawn, Part 2" expands with a full intensity of force, stronger and more epic than the films that led to this impactful finale.

The 'Twilight Saga' has no upmarket aspirations. Seeking neither critical applause or peer-review awards, these movies, like those of Tyler Perry, seek only to provide unabashed satisfaction to those who believe in their characters.

If anything, this series has gotten dumber and more inert as it has progressed, with this last one finally reaching over into an extended wallow in camp.

A feast of ripe dialogue and bloodsucking action.

I must admit if you're going to bring the series to a close, "Part 2" does it about as well as it can be done.

With so many scenes of well-dressed vampires sitting or standing, stiffly, while Taylor Lautner or Robert Pattinson or Kristen Stewart passes another micro-slab of dialogue like a kidney stone, [Sheen's] overacting's greatly appreciated, thanks.

Easily the trippiest and goofiest of the five addled adolescent vampire romances based on the Stephenie Meyer books ...

"Breaking Dawn, Part 2" doesn't end the series on an especially strong note, but it ends it. Let's count our blessings.

Good riddance "Twilight," may it be an eternity before you're relaunched or rebooted.

Condon and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg aren't afraid to play fast and loose with Meyer's story, and that's a good thing. You just wish they'd done it more often.

This second of two Bill Condon-directed installments clears a low bar to stand easily as the franchise's most eventful and exciting entry.

Finally, someone took the source material at its terribly written word and stopped treating the whole affair so seriously.

Breaking Dawn - Part 2, the fifth and concluding chapter of the young vampire romance franchise, manages to find a pulse as it profitably clicks the turnstiles one last time.

While "Breaking Dawn - Part 1" was zany enough...to almost work as a stand-alone, "Part 2" relies on mad rushes of exposition to explain exactly what's at stake here.

The very title Breaking Dawn, Part 2 hints at what the movie, sadly, reveals to be the case: The Twilight franchise has overstayed its welcome.

I'll probably never understand the popularity of the Twilight movies. They're haphazardly assembled adaptations of awful books.

The final installment of the immortal Bella/Edward romance will give its breathlessly awaiting international audience just what it wants.

Finally -- finally! -- the Twilight franchise embraces its own innate absurdity with the gleefully over-the-top conclusion, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2.